Arachnophobia, or the fear of spiders, is one of the most common fears around. Fear is itself a healthy evolutionary trait, designed to keep us out of harm’s way.
And considering that spiders look like little aliens and often carry poisonous venom to defend themselves, it’s no surprise that so many people don’t like to come across or even think about these creepy-crawlies.
If you don’t like to look at something, it goes without saying that you don’t want to eat it. Have you ever heard that the average person swallows eight spiders a year in their sleep?
On one hand, what you don’t know can’t hurt you. And, hey, a spider is just a little extra protein right? However, it’s also alarming to think that we’re ingesting anything by accident — especially spiders.
If you’re in the popular “I don’t want to eat spiders at all" camp, I have some good news: The commonly held belief is simply not true, according to The Scientific American.
We often hear statistics like “x amount of people meet their spouses before the age of 21” or other similar, unfounded claims. More often than not, we just assume them to be true.
They sound official, after all.
Funnily enough, Snopes reports that this spider "fact" became universally accepted when a writer named Lisa Holst collected a number of unsubstantiated facts that were circulating around in an email back in 1993.
Lisa made up her own similar list of fake facts in an attempt to demonstrate how gullible people can be. This spider fact just so happened to be one of them, and unfortunately, anyone who read it missed her point, and the myth got a life of its own.
However, there is no denying how disturbing it is to think that spiders are crawling into our mouths while we’re sleeping or, moreover, that we’re swallowing them without even noticing.
To make matters worse, the "fact" goes, this apparently happens at least eight times every year.
Luckily, The Scientific American points out that this spider-swallowing claim is not scientifically likely, or even possible.
The first reason is that there are only three to four spider species that even dwell inside North American homes.
The species that venture inside the home spend their time weaving their webs, or hunting in areas where people (who are predators) are not.
For this reason, spiders are even less likely to bother crawling into your bed, because there is no prey available.
That is, unless there are bed bugs. In that case, you should hope a spider comes along to help with pest control.
The next reason why you’re so unlikely to swallow a spider is that spiders are afraid of humans (as they should be).
Of course, compared to them, our huge size is partly to blame. But they can also tell that we are alive, and hear our breathing and heartbeat. They perceive us as a threat.
Also, people who sleep with their mouths open tend to snore. The sound of snoring is enough to scare away a person, let alone a little spider.
Granted, some people are deep sleepers, but few people are such deep sleepers that they wouldn’t wake to the sensation of a spider crawling on their face — or into their mouth.
Another reason why we can find comfort in knowing that we aren’t swallowing eight spiders a year is that there is little to no evidence to support this.
Needless to say, there hasn’t been a study that assesses human fecal matter for spider bits.
Moreover, the entire claim is based on the swallower being asleep and not noticing, so how is anyone supposed to know for sure that they swallowed a spider in the first place?
The truth is: they aren’t. And we can all sleep easy tonight with our mouths wide open and void of fear.
It's a good thing we aren't swallowing spiders. They can continue on, helping us keep pesky bugs under control. Plus, this guy is pretty cute.
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