Arachnophobia

In psychological terms the name for the fear of spiders is arachnophobia. Most people has this fear of spiders that won't make them approach spiders or in any way touch spiders. It's not completely irrational since some spiders are dangerous to humans.

It is also a gender issue since nine of ten woman dislikes spiders while only 1/10 of the male population suffers from arachnophobia.

A natural part of human evolution

Fear of spiders has been a natural part of human evolution. In Africa people are most scared of large spiders while Indians from south America doesn't fear large spiders.

In fact they eat large spiders. These differences might suggest, that the fear of spiders may have a cultural background. Another possibility is some kind of inherited fear of spiders, but this is probably not very realistic according to experts in evolution and psychology.

Psychologists acknowledge three symptoms required to fill the definition of a phobia. First of all one should experience:

fear
sweating and or increased heart rate
flight instinct or immobilisation

A spider on a womens hand

before it can be considered a phobia. It is interesting that so many people have these sensations whenever they encounter a spider.

The preferred prey of spiders are insects and spiders plays an important role in crop and garden ecology. People have an interest in spiders which is not acknowledged. Instead spiders are killed on the basis of unsound fear and prejudice.

Spiders are one of the most fascinating animals on the planet.

We hope you will consider to browse around these pages and learn more about the exciting world of spiders.

Eating spider while asleep: myth or fact

It is a common myth that people from time to time eats spiders while they are sleeping. With seven billion people and even more spiders worldwide, there are indeed some close mouth-spider rendevouz taking place every day. Even so, the probability of eating a spider during sleep is probably quite low, as spiders will perceive the mouth of a human or another large animal an unsafe place.

Spiders does a lot of hunting when most people are sleeping. The prey of spiders are insects and in extremely rare cases mammals. Spiders tend to prefer small dark crevices in their natural habitat, and a mouth may seem a dark and safe place for any spider.

Spiders and the human mouth

People breathe air out of their mouth that are warmer than the outside temperature. This will make most spiders stay away from an open mouth since this may not seem as a very safe place.

The mouth of humans is very sensitive. Amongst others the tongue is very sensitive. If a spider enters your mouth while asleep you will probably push back the spider with your tongue. However, its more probable that the spider wont enter your mouth at all. Also, humans tend to have a natural reflex of pushing away disturbing things away from their head even when they are sleeping.

Only a few spiders are eaten by people at sleep

The conclusion about whether or not people are eating spiders while asleep is that in most cases people does not. The chances of eating a spider while asleep is therefore very low.

In fact, stories like this, about spiders being eaten by people during the night is only made to increase the distance between man and spider.

Trapping spiders and keeping them out of your home

Sometimes it is needed to keep spiders out of certain places like kitchens or children rooms. The following is an overview of options for keeping spiders away from your house. First of all, spiders mainly enters your house through doors and windows.

Furthermore, doors and windows are excellent places for egg sacs to develop and for spiders to deposit their eggs. As doors and windows are relatively warm and dry it is a fine place for spiderlings to hatch.

To keep spiders away from both doors and windows it is a good idea to clean around windows and doors using a vacuum cleaner and a cloth.

Glue Traps can be very efficient and are neither poisonous nor toxic to humans. You can buy glue traps in sets of 10 or 20 traps on the internet. They come in many different forms and shapes and it is difficult to recommend one over another.

The next but very effective products is a traditional aerosol based bug insecticide that also works on spiders. The problem with chemicals is that although they should not be poisonous to humans they may have some effects that have not been found yet. When there are other methods available, chemical means for preventing spiders may not be the optimal choice.