
Spiders eat astronomical numbers of insects - deegles
http://www.springer.com/gb/about-springer/media/research-news/all-english-research-news/spiders-eat-astronomical-numbers-of-insects/12139234
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gmoes
I have anecdotal experience with this. I used to have dense native plants in
my yard. My local municipality made me cut them all down. The mosquitoes,
specifically the invasive Aedes species seemed way worse without the lattice
of tall native plants that provided both platforms for jumping spiders and
infrastructure web based spiders. My tiny yard created so much spider-space
for arachnid and other predators. Too bad I was punished by my local
municipality for being so arrogant to want grow native plants. I have massive
photographic evidence to this effect. See here:
[http://opilionesman.blogspot.ca/2017/05/i-wanted-to-share-
so...](http://opilionesman.blogspot.ca/2017/05/i-wanted-to-share-some-things-
that-i.html)

~~~
sxates
What a sad ending. I used to live in Texas where the houses were all very
similar, with mono-culture yards that required constant water, fertilizer, and
mowing.

I now live in the Bay Area, Oakland specifically, and something I've really
come to appreciate here is the lack of any sort of ordinances like you've run
into. In fact, having a green grass lawn is frowned upon for all the
environmental reasons you call attention to. I bought a house in the Oakland
Hills last year and we're surrounded by large trees, native grasses, ferns,
and dozens of native or drought tolerant flora. Few of the yards are fenced
in, which allow wildlife like deer, foxes, turkeys, coyotes to roam freely
between the houses. The trees support dozens of different species of birds.
And while there are tons of spiders too, very few mosquitoes. And this is
still in a city! And do I have to water it? Fertilize it? Mow it? No. I have a
crew come through once or twice a year to clear out overgrowth (required for
wildfire safety) and that's all the maintenance that's required.

I really wish more places in our country would allow native plant life to
thrive around our cities, we'd all be better for it.

~~~
colinthompson
Welcome to the east bay hills! May I suggest a fun alternative to a standard
gardening crew to clear your extra growth:

[http://goatsrus.com/contact.htm](http://goatsrus.com/contact.htm)

From the sound of it, your yard/land is a great fit for their services :)

~~~
sxates
I know some neighbors use them. Trouble with goats is they don't discriminate
much about what they eat, and we do have some things in the garden we'd like
to keep :)

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cyberferret
I live in Australia, and people always freak out when they see me post pics on
spiders around our house on Facebook etc. "Ozzie critters kill you!" they say.

However the most common spiders in our house are Huntsmen spiders [0]. As big,
frightening looking and FAST as they are, they are completely harmless to
humans, and they eat a lot of the larger bugs around the place. We even give
them names as they tend to hang around for days/weeks.

We do have poisonous spiders, but they are rarely found indoors, and I know
the places to avoid outdoors where the Redbacks and Mouse spiders live.

[0] -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r011GRdai8Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r011GRdai8Q)
(arachnophobe trigger warning)

~~~
bryanbuckley
Why would anyone be afraid of poisonous spiders? Do they crawl into your mouth
while you are sleeping?

Ah, you probably mean venomous?

~~~
ClassyJacket
What exactly do you hope to achieve by this kind of needless pedantry? You
said yourself that you understood they probably meant venomous, so it's not as
if the comment wasn't clear.

~~~
bryanbuckley
Because actually I did't understand until I was about to post the comment with
just the first question, at which point I thought to myself OP might mean
venomous!

There are poisonous animals out there that you really should not eat! But for
the most part people aren't afraid of eating poisonous things (it's usually
too late to fear).

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krylon
I do suffer from arachnophobia, but I also live in a place where opening a
window at the end of a hot summer's day means inviting a Zerg rush of insects.
(Okay, there's probably places that are way worse. I feel for those people)

Vibrating spiders
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pholcidae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pholcidae))
are happy to eat anything that gets caught in their webs. In Germany, these
are THE kind of spider you will most likely to find in a typical apartment.
And they do not discriminate between insects and other kinds of spiders that
happen to walk in.

The fact that none of the spiders I am likely to meet where I live (Germany)
is even remotely dangerous to anything that is not an insect probably helps.

But still - at some point, the number of insects these beasts kill before they
get annoying outweighs the terror I feel when one of these crawls across my
desk.

~~~
tertius
If it's not harmful to you I would suggest picking one up. I was in your camp
and picked up a harmless spider, better now.

This is simplistic but a quick anecdote to hopefully push you like I needed
pushing to get over my irrational fear.

~~~
staunch
Exposure therapy seems to be pretty solid science.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_therapy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_therapy)

~~~
krylon
I am aware of that and have considered it. But it does not affect my life very
much, so the pressure to deal with it is not high. Vibrating spiders tend to
live in places where they are not disturbed, and they do not move around a
lot, so we do not cross paths very often.

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Gargoyle
I wish birds would eat astronomical numbers of spiders, or at least black
widows. For whatever reason, black widows are a plague in my micro-area. I
could walk around the outside of my house tonight and find 8 or 10 easy. Big
ones too. Always have to take extra care around this place.

Anyway, people tell me chickens eat them, but I don't really want to keep
chickens.

~~~
chesterc
\- You wish birds would eat them.

\- You get birds that eat them.

\- You don't want to get said birds.

~~~
RaleyField
\- You get foxes that eat them.

\- You get dogs that eat them.

\- Wolves, hyenas, lions.

\- Lions die in winter.

~~~
portlander12345
\- The wheel of the seasons

\- You run the dogs over

\- Ant lions have their way

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billforsternz
I suspect they also eat a lot of other spiders as well. I was looking at a
couple of spiders on the ceiling the other day. A big one and a little one.
Apparently nothing was happening, but as I watched I noticed the big one was
slowly circling around and in towards the little one. Then at a certain point
it suddenly started moving fast. But the little one was obviously aware of the
danger. It made an "I'm out of here" rapid descent on silk. Until that point I
thought the little one was an insect actually (so small I couldn't count legs
at a distance). Another day in the life, nature red in tooth and claw. I like
being at the top of the food chain.

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michaelbuckbee
I was curious if you could use them for pest control and it appears the answer
is "kinda". The biggest issue appears to be that most spiders are pretty
indiscriminate eaters, so while they'll happily eat crop destroying insects,
they'll also eat bees, etc.

A shop I found - [https://spiderpharm.com/store/#!/Live-
Spiders/c/11175143/off...](https://spiderpharm.com/store/#!/Live-
Spiders/c/11175143/offset=0&sort=normal)

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inthaiguy
I got one of those new LED flashlights and went to test it out at night. I
used the trick my dad taught me of putting the light at my temple, so the
light would be eye level. This way animals with reflective eyes would be
visible if they are looking in your direction. Checked the dogs and sure
enough a couple of glowing eyes.

Next I walked into the lawn and saw that dew drops covered the grass. A nice
sparkling effect. After a bit of walking around a bit more and investigating
some other areas, I noticed the grass was not really wet - the sparkle was
spider eyes reflecting the flashlight! Must be 5 - 10 spiders per sq foot,
everywhere I looked. Very small with no webs, but easily believe these
numbers.

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k_sze
I live in Hong Kong. I’ve actually caught and released jumping spiders into my
6-yo daughter’s room, to clear the booklice on the ceiling. My daughter
doesn’t mind the spiders. I have taught her enough about insects and spiders
that she’s not afraid of them. We even raised silkworms and kept a huntsman
spider as pet.

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graeme
I always leave spiders alive in my apartment. I've lived in two. In both
cases, when I first moved in I had bugs. After leaving spiders alive, I then
had almost no bugs.

~~~
Spare_account
I was vacuuming spider webs in my house today because I had guests visiting
which always triggers a flurry of cleaning.

I avoided vacuuming the spiders themselves though, those little dudes are
helping us out.

~~~
tedeh
Well, if you leave your vacuum hose lying flat on the ground after turning it
off, you can have a fun time watching the spiders march out after a while,
should you accidentally catch a few.

~~~
schtitt
I remember reading a question about this somewhere, where it was stated that
because of the massive turbulence inside a vacuum, there was very little
chance of a spider surviving something like that!

~~~
tedeh
I believe you, but I've actually seen it with my own eyes. Quite probably the
survivability depends on the type of spider...

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pmoriarty
When I find a spider in my apartment, I usually leave it alone so it can kill
off other pests.

As long as it's not bothering me, I usually don't bother it.

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sliverstorm
Clearly this means the solution to our declining insect population is predator
control. A problem we created by spraying insecticides, we will solve by
spraying arachnicides! It's perfect.

Much Love,

Dow Chemical

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throwaway2016a
Where I am we have a huge amount of wolf spiders and parson spiders. Both of
them have (from what I've heard) pretty painful bites[1] so I like to keep
them out of the house but I almost never kill them. I usually just let them
outside.

I'm fairly sure it's not a coincidence that I almost never see a mosquito even
though I live near a pond.

Now if only we could train them to eat deer ticks...

[1] Like a bad bee sting. Not dangerous unless you are allergic (possibly?).

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dzhiurgis
Dad always gets pissed when mom tries to remove spider webs in out boat - it’s
the webs that keeps it flies-free.

That said, last year we had ant infestation. Dad tried everything including
chemical agents until we found there was 1 kilo of sugar in a paper bag.
Nothing was stopping ants getting there. Removed the sugar and ants were gone
days later.

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skc
I used to kill them, and all manner of other insects. Not sure why. As I've
gotten older I leave them alone or throw them outside the house if my
girlfriend sees them.

I guess this is one more reason why I should do that. If only they could eat
up all the damn mosquitoes though.

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11235813213455
spiderbros

Also I really hate that pets, particularly cats, kill a big amount of spiders,
birds, lizards, bees, and all those very useful creatures, (useful compared to
pets). With 1 billion+ pets, it's an issue, and many cats go outside. It's
like a 5% larger human footprint, when you consider also all the care/food
brought to them, completely unnecessary

~~~
cmurf
I once had a neighbor constantly losing track of her outdoor cat, and would
wander around calling the cat by name for an hour. I relayed this obnoxious
story to a nature photographer, he said kill the cat, as in shoot it. I said
no. He said to buy him a plane ticket, and he'll shoot the cat.

A family member is a veterinary technician, and says outdoor cats do a lot of
damage, and the cat themselves lives a shorter life. Outdoor cats should be
considered the same as any stray animal or varmint and picked up by animal
control, but I guess it's impractical for whatever reason.

Anyway, cats should be kept indoors, and outdoor cat owners are ignorant.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
What country are you guys from that the phrase “outdoor cat” is a thing? Where
I live, the uk, that’s just a cat; “indoor cat” would be the notable, unusual
state.

~~~
badpun
Any cat kept in a flat above ground level is pretty much an indoor cat. In
some countries, most people don’t live in houses, but in flats.

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sexydefinesher
More like, gastronomical

