I Don't Know About That - Arachnids

Episode Date: January 11, 2022

In this episode, the team discusses arachnids with zoologist, photographer, and author of the eBook "We Should Give Hugs to the Bugs in the Rugs", Ben Holdridge. Go to ALittleWildPhotography.com to learn more! Make sure to purchase his eBook on Amazon.com! Go to JimJefferies.com to buy tickets to Jim's upcoming tour, The Moist Tour.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

delta omnicrom have you heard these words probably not we might tell you about them and i don't know about that with jim jeffries and kelly and forrest and jack at home jack's at home jack's at home because Jack might have Omicron. Omicron. We don't know because Jack's- That's the newest variant. Jack's become a fucking scientist. He rings me up today and he goes, I can't get Omicron through the nose,

so I've put a nasal swab up my mouth and I've gotten it. Now, I've read some things that say if you put up your mouth, saliva touches it, then you'll get a false positive. And I'm someone who had a false positive from a proper place. I read that too. And so Jack might not have it. Well, yeah, I told him to check his throat because I had heard that Omicron started more in your throat first.

And I had a few friends that were negative through the nasal swab and then positive. Yeah, but he used a nasal one in his throat. Yeah, they did go get it. Well, the home ones are only nasal. But the thing is, so there's doctors that are saying, even with the nasal ones, put it up your throat and then you might get it. And then other doctors are going, you're out of your mind.

It turns out, right, that we don't know everything about this. It's been a couple of years and we're still in the dark a little bit. Yeah. Some people are sold the disease is even real. Yeah. We're heading into junior year of COVID and we still still in the dark a little bit. Yeah, we're heading into... The disease is even real. We're heading into junior year of COVID and we still have people that don't know where it is. I hate to be like nasty. It's not my way.

But I do hope that a lot of unvaccinated people get extraordinarily sick. No, I don't want them to die. I'm not to die. Just like I told you so. A little wake up call. I don't want this because I've got a baby. I'm trying to protect the fucking baby, man. I don't care if to die. I told you so. A little wake up call. I don't want this because I've got a baby. I'm trying to protect the fucking baby, man. I don't care if they die.

I thought you were going to go. That's not nice, Jim. I thought he was too. I was like, that's on like Forrest. No, I follow some people on Twitter that specifically look for people, not just anti-vax, like people that have been railing against the vaccine. There was a police officer recently that like put video after video after he's dead he died there's a video after video of like it's a hoax this is bullshit whatever and i'm like i don't know you

but yeah there's some politician in orange county kelly nb ensby or something like that she just died 46 years old and she was like an anti-vaxxer bye-byebye. Well, the thing about the whole people who won't get the vaccine or some stuff, it hasn't been tested enough. It has been tested enough. Sydney's gone mental with the Omicron. Australia's now just gone because Australia was very strict, right? And now Australia's just gone, all right, everyone live your life. They had 40,000 cases in Sydney yesterday, 40,000.

Whoa. They fucking, they're rocking it out, man, which is good. How many cases made your shows get cancelled? Was it like five? It was one to begin with. Was one shut your shows down and another at four? Yeah, it was when I left Australia, there was 100 cases. It started with one and it ended with 100. And then

they maybe got up to a few. I don't know the exact numbers, but I had to shut down all the shows. And now the shows are going ahead. Australia, we're on tour. We're coming to see you. We're going to be there from June 10th till July 10th. We're doing everything. Most shows are sold out.

We've still got tickets at Wollongong, and our good friends in New Zealand still have a few tickets as well. Don't forget in the United States you have shows too. Oh, I have shows in America where the ticket sales have just stopped, and it turns out everyone, it's very hard to sell tickets at the moment because of, you know, everyone's dying. This week you have Pittsburgh and Columbus. Pittsburgh and Columbus.

Pittsburgh and Columbus. I'm looking forward to getting back on the road. I'm going to bring Amos Gill. And who else is coming with me? Me. Me. Okay. Amos has COVID at the moment.

He has to get a clear test. So I don't know. Am I allowed to say that on the thing? I don't know. I might not say that on the thing. I don't know. I mean. I don't know. He should announce that. You're not supposed to be secretive about it.

Yeah. So sorry, Amos. Yeah, so anyone who's been in contact with Amos, good luck. Boris, you've got some dates, right? Yeah, January 20th, I'll be at Punchline Philly. There's a link in my bio on Instagram. Please go buy tickets. A lot of people said they were going to come see me after the show

in Philadelphia Gym. We'll see. I don't know. I've sold some tickets, but I'd like to sell some more. Go and see. If you liked Forrest at my show, come and see him do an extra 30 minutes on top of that. Yeah, yeah.

If you like the material he did, he's got some other stuff. Yeah, I might do some of that material, but I have to do about an hour yeah yeah it'll be different all the material we all knew and if you didn't see him we all knew i really knew and then the week after that kansas city missouri for you again and des moines iowa i'll be with you again there yeah um i believe it's me and lisa curry i think anyways, if you go to jimjeffries.com, all the stuff there. There's other dates on there too. Yeah, yeah. We're coming to Orlando.

We've got gigs up in Canada. I hear the Canadians, though, are like half capacity for shows, but I've sold out a couple of those shows already. So we hope that rule changes. Otherwise, if it doesn't, I'll add another show late at night and I'll put half and half and we'll sort it out you're not there for a while yeah i think it's going to be fine by the time i get there by the time i get there it's going to be fun before that you got yeah

orlando tampa reading pennsylvania washington dc boston salt lake city san anton sugarland texas sugarland sugarland i didn't even know that was a place you're going to houston basically that's where minimates based that's where pops used to work I think it's Houston, basically. That's where Minute Maid's based. That's where Pops used to work. Oh, really? It's Sugar Land. Sugar Land. You think that's where they make Coca-Cola? Exactly.

Because Minute Maid used all natural oranges, didn't it? Yep. And then, guys, don't forget to follow us on Instagram at idcatpodcast. And then we're back on Patreon. So patreon.com slash idcat. And I was actually thinking of something. A lot of people joined because they want

to see Jack's segments. So he got a lot of, I'm here for Jack's bullshit. I'm behind a paywall now. I was thinking if you guys are open to this, I think we do something where it's like anybody who is on our Patreon before the end of February, we'll pick five people

at random and send them like a personalized video or something. I'm thinking on before the end of February, we'll pick five people at random and send them like a personalized video or something. A dick pic. Yeah, a dick pic, a personalized video. I'm thinking of getting rid of the cameras for just the regular podcast because no one watches it on YouTube. It's like less than 20% of our audience watch the podcast and 80% listen to it. And I'm like, what the fuck am I paying for all this technology?

I know. That's what the Patreon is for, guys. Putting a podcast on is fucking expensive. If we could cover some of the operating costs like all this fucking video recording stuff and paying for somebody assumes that if you do a podcast that's successful that you're rich and everyone's like everyone's like you gotta put it on youtube you gotta put it on youtube and it's just like what the fuck and then everyone just listens to the fucking thing there's other people who do

watch on youtube watching right now hello yeah. What are you doing, man? Your Patreon subscription helps us because we don't make money from this. We all but break even on the podcast and we're one of the top 250 podcasts on the planet. So we are not loaded from this. So if you guys support on Patreon, we appreciate it. Not just in comedy, in all podcasts. We're in the top 250.

It's sad. In the whole world. Merch. Yeah, merch is coming. I think we should be launching that in the next couple of weeks. So we got good stuff coming, guys, but we appreciate your support. Let's introduce our guest. I'll stop complaining.

Let's talk to our guest. Should I read some ads first? Or we do that later? We'll do that later. All right. Guest. All right. Let's talk to a guest. Should I read some ads first? I don't know. Or we do that later? We'll do that later. All right. Guest. All right. Let's welcome our guest, Ben Holdridge.

G'day, Ben. Now it's time to play. Yes, no. Yes, no. Yes, no. Yes, no. Judging a book by its cover. I've always, when I've heard that song,

I just realized it does sound like when Jack sings. I think Jack may have sent that in himself. All right, all right, Ben. A very nondescript room that Ben's got. He's got a door with a picture above it and then another little picture. He's wearing a flannel shirt. Before we came on air, he said something about grad school. So you're a student.

I am. You're in, you're, you call it university, in university. Do you, is the subject we're about to talk about, about what you study? Yeah, it is. I do study it. Good, good. Does that help you? He might have the biggest collection of jam jars or some shit.

Yeah, that's a good point. I have to talk about fucking, you know. Hold on. How did you get it? Jam jars? Jam jars. We're running thin on topics, man. Jam jars.

What is a jam jar? I'll be like, so when were they invented? Although I love those, the fucking the Food That Built America shows. I can watch them. It drives my wife insane. I'm like, she goes, what are you watching? I go, Invention of the Jelly Bean. How many jam jars a year do people shove up their ass? Who calls them mason jars and where did the term

come from? See, that would have been a good question on jam jars. Yeah, we'll do jam jars. Alright, so Ben, do you live on the East Coast? I do not. I never even asked that. What's your thinking there? The clothing, I thought maybe he was into something like, it might have been the Liberty Bell or some shit.

Liberty Bell. Why is there a crack in it? Who knows? Anyway, never be able to figure that out. Okay. Are you involved in medicine no no no no involved in medicine history no not really not really uh is is the topic a product no no this is something that people are afraid of oh oh uh not everybody but people are yeah well not anymore my mom's not around anymore

expert on your mom yeah you're an expert on me mom many many men on cod claim to be on what on call of duty i thought that was like a cape cod reference the east coast in australia i tell you what though i was playing i was playing call of duty andia i tell you what though i was playing i was playing call of duty and i was like yeah some guy was calling me uh the f word and then the c word and then the n word and then the this word and then he's going through all the all the different things and i said oh calm the calm the fuck down you dickhead like that i said something like that and he goes wait this is on like i'm playing a video games are you jim jeffries and i

and i went oh god because then my tag will get let out and I can't let my tag get out. Then people will know and bother me. And I said, no, no, no, I'm not Jim Jefferies. And the guy said, I don't know about that. Did he? Well, that is a fan. He's going to hear this now.

I don't know, but I just give the money to me, sir. Oh, no, let me tag out. I have to get a new tag.'s going to hear this now. I don't know, but I just give the money to me, sir. Oh, no, let me tag. I don't have to get a new tag. Is it my tag? Yeah. Okay. It's a tag that I should have. Okay.

You gave it to me because I had a problem with my internet for a while. And anyway, so jam jars. We're all afraid of them. Hank's mom is very afraid of some of these. Oh, men. A lot of people are afraid of men. Yeah, that's true. That's true.

Okay, she's afraid of... Okay, so what Kate's afraid of. Yeah, yeah. Kate's not afraid of anything. I just remember her being very afraid of these like she might have killed some oh bugs

you're getting close closer rats no I think like eight oh spiders now you can just give them how many legs they have arachnids haven't. The arachnids.

Arachnids. Haven't we done arachnids? No. No. I feel like we've done arachnids. We did mosquitoes. When did we do arachnids? I don't know.

But I know they're not insects. Carry on. Well done. Carry on. All right. Ben Holdridge is a zoologist, photographer, and author living in Olympia, Washington. He studied zoology at Cal Poly Pomona and entomology at University of Florida. And I spent the last decade working as a field biologist, zookeeper, educator, and wildlife rehabilitator. In 2020, he published

a children's ebook. We should give hugs to bugs in the rugs. Volume one, the amazing arachnids, which is available on Amazon. It was originally for adults, but then the kids just were drawn to the name. We should give hugs to Bugs and the Rugs. Volume 1, The Amazing Arachnids. It's available on Amazon and through his website at alittlewildphotography.com. My wife doesn't like spiders, but she doesn't like me to kill spiders. So I'm in a big world where I have to set them free and all that type of stuff.

It's fucking, it's a whole world. It's a whole thing. There's little vacuums you can get. They suck them up. They're alive and you can put them outside. Yeah. Yeah.

I'd love to suck up an animal in a vacuum in front of my wife. I was telling them yesterday, my, my roommate in college, I came home one day and she had a cup with, um, uh, plastic over it with holes in it with a black widow.

She was keeping it as a pet. And I forgot to tell you guys, she was feeding it macaroni and cheese. And I go, I don't think. Don't give away the answers. That's what they eat. I don't think spiders like mac and cheese. And she just goes, everybody likes mac and cheese. And I was like, touche.

Yeah, no, Kate, my ex My ex She Hank's mother She She got bit by a black widow And she was like In hospital Like paralyzed For like a day or something So she goes out the house

And she's just like There's black widows outside I'm like That's where they're meant to fucking live What am I meant to do There was one she killed And I go That's not a black widow

She goes It looks poisonous Yeah yeah She reached under A bit of outdoor furniture And bit her on the hand and then she was uh she was not in a good state yeah my best friend got a brown recluse bite right near her eye and she had like a hole as an australian i think i'll do quite well i think it's just genetically in me that i'll know a lot about this and plus i grew up seeing funnel web spiders the most poisonous of them all on a

on a not daily basis but once every couple of weeks, I'd say one. Well, real quick, Ben, before we start, do you want to give us a little bit of your history? Like how do you just, you know, brief little thing on how you got into arachnids? Sure. I started out working with animals about 10, 12 years ago, first at the San Diego zoo wild animal park, which is now the safari park. After that, I also worked at zoo Miami and a wildlife rehabilitation center in Miami. years ago, first at the San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park, which is now the Safari Park. After that, I also worked at Zoo Miami and a wildlife rehabilitation center in Miami.

And at all those jobs, people are always obviously animal lovers and they love working with animals and learning about them. But whenever there was an opportunity to work with invertebrates, like insects and spiders, no one ever wanted to. And so I basically just took the opportunity to start working in that field and got into photography while I was doing it, while I was working for Miami. Why are you Peter Parker? That's just kind of history. No, not quite. He sounds like it.

He's a photographer. Let's just call him Spider-Man for the rest of the podcast. People at Zoo Miami, my coworkers there did call me Spider-Man. Cause I was always looking for them. Somebody had to. How's your Aunt May? Okay. had to. How's your Aunt May? Okay. I said,

how's your Aunt May? Forget it. In the newer movies. Very fuckable. In the older films. Not too much. Not too much. Marissa Tomei.

Yeah. Marissa Tomei was my favorite growing up. I still have a soft spot for her. Marissa Tomei is the aunt in Spider-Man. Oh yeah. The newer ones. You haven't seen the newer ones? Yeah.

I guess I got to go watch it. Yeah, all the new ones. Marissa Tomei, yeah. With great power comes Marissa Tomei. I don't know if that's the same. Great erections. Okay. Oh, geez.

Here's what we're going to do. Here's what we're going to do. Here's what we're going to do. Okay, I'm going to ask Jim a bunch of questions. I reckon Spider-Man shoots webs out instead of jizz. I'm going to ask Jim a bunch of questions. I reckon Spider-Man shoots webs out instead of jizz. I'm going to ask Jim a series of questions about arachnids. At the end of these questions, Ben, you're going to grade him on his accuracy. Zero through ten.

Ten's the best. Kelly's going to grade him on confidence. I'm going to grade him on et cetera. We'll add all three scores together. 21 through 30, arachnid. Like the country. 11 through 20, Saddam Hussein-nid.

Wow, you really went on a ride. Zero through 10, weapons of mass destruction-nid because they don't exist. What's an arachnid? Spider-man. It's an eight-legged animal what characterizes an arachnid eight legs that's it and fangs that's it yeah and also uh often they have fur on them

little bits of fur so only spiders are arachnids uh i'm trying to think of other yeah any spiders man okay what orders or types of arachnid are out there? The order of the blue shield. That's a little long. No, what do you mean the order? The order of the great divine arachnid? What do you mean? Like taxonomic orders.

I guess I kind of asked you the question of the other types. Don't worry about it. We'll keep going. So it turns out there are other types. I changed my first answer. You can't change that. How long have arachnids been around, you know? Oh, they would have been bothering dinosaurs and shit.

They would have been. So I'm going to give them a go. Why are they bothering them? Because they bother everyone. They're spiders. No one's. Okay, I know what's about to happen. Oh, they're vital to our ecosystem. And they catch flies.

They catch flies. I catch more flies than spiders. When do you catch flies? When one's around me, I'm like, bang, I get them. I get them. Yeah, sometimes if one's on me leg, I scoop it up in me hand and I go fly or no fly and then fly. Right?

Okay. So I capture. You ever play fly or no fly? Yeah, I used to hotbox my apartment and it would make the flies slower because they were high and it was so easy to catch them. Yeah. If there's flies in the area, they're gone. They're gone.

And sometimes I'll have one of those like that. That's doing a lot of work. And then if you want to give me this bullshit that the spiders are catching the flies, I never see one catching more than two. I'm catching eight in a day. I'm more effective than a spider. So apparently you've observed a lot of spiders. Okay. How many arachnids exist?

What, in total or breeds? I don't know. However you want to answer it. Millions upon millions. Okay, so they're millions of years old. And then on the planet, I'm going to say there's seven billion people. I'm going to say there's 9 billion arachnids. You did that without even calculating with your fingers. Yeah, I just, what I did was I counted the amount of people and then I guessed there was a few more of them. A few more spiders. A few more arachnids.

Okay. How do arachnids reproduce? Well, if memory serves me correct, that's a good name for a podcast. We did an episode on memory. It's not very accurate. Yeah, so what happens is they mate, right, and then they lay a larva, right, and then the larva comes out, and then after they mate, the woman would eat the man.

There's always women eating men up, and they say, oh, in the animal kingdom, women eat men after they have sex with them. I find that in the human world just metaphorically. They take your soul as soon as you've done that. Name me a few types of spiders. I'll name you some. Okay, black widow is a popular one here in America. Funnel web spider from the Karingo National Park where I grew up,

which is indigenous to the, in Sydney, which is indigenous to the thing. The redback spider is a very popular one that hides under your toilet seat. That'll get you. Lovely beer from Western Australia as well, Redback. Any other? Daddy Longlegs, who there's always a big thing about the Daddy Longlegs. It's the most venomous spider, but its fangs can't pierce your skin. Then it's not.

Maybe per mass or something like that. Maybe it's per mass. It's just a spider with a kink. Yeah, it's just a fucking, I love killing a daddy longlegs. That was a real bit of fun. You rip the leg off at a time. That's a good nickname. People should be called daddy longlegs more.

Yeah, you'd have to be. I've got short legs. Yeah, you can. I could be daddy longlegs. You could be daddy longlegs. I'll be daddy longlegs. Camilla Cleese, that's daddy longlegs all day. She's got a hell of a longlegs.

She got them from John. What are spinnerets? I've got more spiders today, man. No, no, we're good. What are spinnerets? What's the tarantulas? What are spinnerets? Spinnerets, they're little tiny spiders that go woo, woo, woo.

Those sound like the rockets for spiders. What is spider silk made of? Web. Made of web? What goes into it? What are the ingredients? Well, whatever the ass juice is that makes web. So this is another thing. Peter Parker, this is another problem I have.

I'm a big fan of the Spider-Man where he just shoots web out of his hands. He's made into a fucking spider. Then the other ones, they're like this. No, he's invented web and he's attached it to his fucking thing and he cooks it up in a lab.

Fuck off. That's stupid. He just has it in the end. They just can't get their story straight. Yeah. So, so I reckon, okay,

so it's ass juice. Ass juice. And so it's not, it's not shit as much. It would be, um, okay. So they call them cobwebs. So it's not shit as much. It would be, okay, so they call them cobwebs.

So it's probably made of corn. Why don't? Why don't? There's some good reasoning there, man. Great reasoning. Why don't they get stuck in their own webs? Because they have nonstick hands. Their hands.

Made out of Teflon? It's the same reason I don't slip over when I jizz on the floor because I know it's there. I was the one who put it there. They know how to step around it properly. What animals hunt spiders? You've never seen a dog stepping and saying shit. You know what I'm saying, yo?

What animals hunt spiders? Humans. We hunt them. What animals hunt spiders? Humans. We hunt them. What animals hunt spiders? Sharks would if they could, but they can't. Is there water spiders? Oh, yeah, they hunt the water spiders all day. What animals hunt spiders?

I'd say humans. How can you recognize the sex of a spider? Whether you get an erection when it comes to it. No, no. It would bite its pattern on its back. Are they social? And whether it's killing its husband after it sleeps with it. I'm not saying husband.

They're too evolved to get married. Are they social? I don't think they are social. I think I very rarely see a family of spiders. I very rarely see a whole lot of spiders just hanging. They're always hanging out. Yeah, they're always by themselves. I would say they're an extraordinarily antisocial animal.

What is a camel spider? It's one that you get bit by on Wednesdays. Hump day. Why? No, I think it would be one with two humps on it. Why do scorpions glow under UV light? Because they are the flashiest of the arachnid. Scorpions are arachnids?

Yeah, damn straight they are. How did you figure that out? Because you wouldn't be mentioning them otherwise. Yeah, scorpions because they're the fucking, they're the cool kids of the arachnids. That's why they glow? Yeah, because they've got that ultraviolet stuff.

They've got that stuff. You ever gone into one of those clubs and it's like, boom, and it makes all your teeth all bright and your shoes are all bright and they're ultraviolet. And then you have cum stains on your shirt and you're like, oh, God. Tonic water? What is Jack going on about? Okay. That was a life hack from before. This two part actually, do spiders lay eggs? Yeah.

Do scorpions lay eggs? Yeah. Okay. Are spiders and other arachnids worth being afraid of this is an opinion i believe they are worth being afraid of because they have the potential to kill you so and like i know the the bullshit answer is going to go they're more afraid of you than you are of them and all that type of stuff but they're worth if you got one of them in your shoe yeah be afraid be very afraid okay what's the difference between venom and poison? Venom.

Now, I milked the funnel web spider just recently. Wait a second. What? Is that a train stopping or a bus? No, those are fangs. The fangs going in. I was part of milking. What? Is that a train stopping or a bus? No, those are fangs. The fangs. The fangs going in. So I was part of milking.

So I was doing a documentary for Netflix that never happened because of COVID. We were doing something about the tour and it was with my pregnant wife. I think I can say this now. And it got cancelled because Australia shut down. But we were in filming and we went and milked some funnel webs and some snakes. Nipples? No, no, no, no. You got the venom out.

Because that's how you get the anti-venom is by putting the venom in the thing and it takes something like a funnel web, it takes maybe 20 doses of milking the spider to get enough anti-venom for one anti-venom shot. Now, with all the technology in the world, it's very, they still, the only way they do it is a shot glass with a bit of cellophane over the top of a rubber band. That's the best system. No one's thought we can make something a bit nicer to do this.

A venom jar. No, just like a purpose-built thing, but it's always a shot glass that you could be laying around. Those should be called jam jars. Jam jars. Jam their fangs into them. A couple more questions there. Hang on, hang on.

Venom and poison. Poison is something that you can eat. Venom is something that is injected into you. I think you might be right on that, actually. Pretty good. Are any spiders or scorpions truly deadly? Yes, yes, of course they're truly deadly. Yes, yes. What do you mean by the word truly? I think that all of them you can like like i think that all of them you can survive i think that all of them have anti-venoms they figured out anti-venoms for all of them okay

but i think you know if you wanted to ask a person who had been bitten by a redback and the ambulance was an hour away he would say yes it's truly truly deadly okay are all ticks parasitic. Are ticks arachnids? I'm going to say yes. I've had ticks kill dogs when I was growing up. Are they all parasitic? Yeah. Mites? No, they're arachnids. Mites, they might be.

Okay. Two more questions what significant human diseases are vectored by ticks what can you get from a tech um i okay so maybe malaria although i know that normally happens from mosquitoes but i believe that they could probably do it i know that a tick can cause paralysis in a small dog. It's human diseases, let's say. But humans' diseases, I would say, when in doubt, go with gout. Okay. And last question, how do humans and other vertebrates pick up ticks?

Well, ticks is through walking through shrubs and short grass and bushes and stuff like that. It will just attach to your skin. That's why you've got to wear long pants if you're walking through the Australian outback or even just the Australian bush because you'll get ticks on you. Okay. Wait, one more question. What is the name of the topic of this that starts with an A? Arachnid.

Okay. What is it? Arachnid. What's the last part? This is not your podcast. Are you saying nib or nid? Nib. Nib.

It's a nid. Arachnid. Arachnid. You're not good with A words. I have problems with words. Okay, Ben. Wow. That was a bombshell at the end there.

Ben, zero through 10. 10's the best. How Jim doing on arachnids? Arachnids. Well, that's a tough one. It's there. Uh, Ben zero through 10, 10 is the best. How Jim doing is on, on arachnids. Well, that's a tough one. Cause it's not tough. Well, some of those answers are going to surprise you that he pretty much nailed.

I'm not sure how he did, but he nailed them. And other ones were just completely off the wall. So I think, uh, about a five, I think. Yeah,

I'm all right with that. But I, I got some good information out there. You didn't know that. You have some good ones there. You didn't know that you had to do milk several of them to get one bit, did you? Yeah, I did. I did that with venom. I didn't expect that you had milked those spiders before. I did. I milked a funnel web and a whole lot of snakes and it was with this bloke who was just like, that was his job. And he was like the main guy in Australia. Young fella, right? And he was like he was like the main guy in australia young fella right and i was like i was like how do you how do you know how to do this he goes

i used to do it as a hobby and then like the guy at the animal park said that i should come and do it right like i kept on visiting the animal park and he's like what do you do oh i have a shot glass and a bit of cellophane i catch snakes snakes in my backyard. He just figured out how to milk them just through trial and error because I don't think there's many courses. Yeah. No masterclass. But he was a bit like Steve Irwin. There you go, you bloody snake.

There you go. He's locked on. He's locked on. He's locked on. When I say I helped, I was holding the tail. Kelly, how do you doing confidence? I would give him a 15 on confidence. I thought I was pretty confident.

You were very confident. I'm going to give you a zero. That way you stay Saddam Hussein-nid. Saddam Hussein-nib. Whatever you want to do. Nib. Nib. And let's get to the questions.

What's an arachnid, Ben? Jim said, Spider-Man, eight legs, fangs for only spiders. Yeah, I was right about that. He's got part of it there. It's also ticks and scorpions. Yep, absolutely. So an arachnid is an organism that belongs to the phylum Arthropoda, which is everything with a jointed exoskeleton. The subphylum Chilicerata, which is a group of arthropods that have these specialized mouth parts for either pinching or slicing, and the class arachnida, just like the class insecta.

And they have eight legs, like Jim said, although not all eight are used for walking in a lot of groups. Some of them are used for different functions. They tend to have two to eight eyes, although some of them have none. They have two body segments as opposed to three in the insects and the hexapods. They have the abdomen and the cephalothorax, which is like the head and the thorax fused together. And like he started talking about, there are all sorts out there, all different groups, not just the spiders. And all of them have some sort of hair-like structures on them, but it's not actually fur. That's a mammalian trait. Now, when you say that all the legs don't

get used for walking, what are the other legs up to? What are they doing? This one's for the dishes. Well, I mean, it's not too far off. A lot of them, a lot of different orders, a lot of different groups have kind of modified a pair of legs over millions and millions of generations to serve different purposes. So for instance, insects and crustaceans have antennae that they use to kind of sense the environment. They sense and smell and taste and hear with the antennae and arachnids don't have that. So in certain groups, like say the the harvest men their second pair of legs are super duper long and they don't support their weight anymore but they're covered in sensory cells that can basically pick up sensory information

from the environment just like the antennae of insects okay so i'd have one arm just for pointing yeah just for making a point you know i have my other legs. My other legs would be like walking, walking, walking, walking, walking. And then my eighth leg would be like, you see here. Hear me out. Yeah, or any of them just arms because arms aren't used for walking. Would animals be looking at us going, oh, they have four legs, but only two of them are used for walking? Well, that's essentially true because our arms are essentially just very modified legs from our quadruped ancestors millions of years ago.

And hominids essentially started standing up and walking on two legs to free up this pair of legs, which are now arms to manipulate the environment and to help track prey, find food, that sort of thing. I'd like one extra arm just out the middle of me chest. Four. Just for wanking so that I can still play video games or something. Yeah, I could drive. Just a wanking arm. Well, on top of those sensory legs that some of the arachnids have,

they all have a feature, what are called pedipalps. And if you've ever looked, you probably noticed them when you were looking at the Sydney funnel webs, but they have their four main legs. And then next to their head, they have these two kind of miniature looking legs that are about half the size. Those are called pedipalps. And those are usually used in sensing the environment, even in the groups that don't have modified walking legs. They pick up senses. A lot of them have copulatory organs for breeding and that sort of thing. And in some of them, they're very heavily modified. So in the scorpions, for instance, their pinchers are their pedipalps that have just been very modified in order to grasp and slice

things. Yeah. That's what I was going to say. I'm looking at pictures of scorpions. I was like, I thought they had three legs. So they have three, I mean, they have eight appendages, but three of them are legs or six of them are legs. And then two of them are the. Well, eight of them are like, they have four pairs of walking legs and then they have eight appendages, but three of them are legs or six of them are legs. And then two of them are the. Well, eight of them are like they have four pairs of walking legs and then they have the. Yeah. So all arachnids evolved from primitive ancestors about I'm talking about 400 million years ago that didn't have any walking legs. They had these pseudopods on them that kind of worked like the fake legs of caterpillars for crawling around. that kind of worked like the fake legs of caterpillars for crawling around.

And then at the front of their bodies, they had six pairs of manipulative appendages that over time grew into the four, the four pairs of walking legs, the chelicera and the pedipalps. Okay. What orders or types of arachnid? We kind of just went over that. Right. So I think we're good there. Sure. Although there's quite a few that didn't mention, you know, ticks and mites harvest men, which we can talk about, which are a weird group of arachnids that no one remembers. Whipped scorpions, like vinegar runes, if you've ever heard of that. Oh, I love a vinegar rune. Girl Scout cookies, right?

No, real bitter. And then there's a few other ones that no one's ever really heard about, like hooded tick scorpions and micro whip scorpions. But it is a massive group. Which ones can you eat? Because I've been in Asia, they're always eating a scorpion on a stick. There's a lot. I've never seen a spider on a stick. That's out there. You can absolutely find tarantula.

Oh, you've never seen, like, in Thailand, they're just, like, selling a scorpion and they cook it on a little thing? Have you ever seen that, like, on TV or anything? Maybe. I don't know. I don't know. Well, that is a thing but i've we've walked past that i made comment okay i've heard that's more of a gimmick for tourists than

it is an actual food source for local people but in certain areas absolutely there there are a lot of say tarantulas or scorpions which can be be really big and proteins, protein. So you're saying the guy ripped me off when I bought the t-shirt and said, I ate a scorpion in Thailand. What's a harvest man. What does that, what does that harvest man? It's an entire order of arachnids, just like the spiders are in order and the scorpions are in order. And you guys have probably all seen them before they crawl around on the ground, especially in warm human environments and especially at night. Uh, but they superficially look a lot like a spider. They have a small fused body and then eight huge legs.

And they also have pedophiles in front. And there's a lot of variety. But they're completely harmless. They have no fangs. They don't bite. They don't do anything. They're actually kind of good to have around because they're scavengers, detritivores. They eat a lot of little insect pests.

It's just that they look very much like a spider and freak out. Are termites, are they arachnids? No, they're insects. Termites are actually a very derived or specialized type of cockroach, believe it or not. Fucking pain in the neck. No one's ever gone. No one's ever gone.

I saw a wonderful termite the other day. He was a joy to have around. How long have arachnids been around? Jim said they would have been bothering dinosaurs and shit. Yeah, man. That's true, for sure. I mean, they're not going to be bothering the dinosaurs as much as insects would have, but definitely some of the mites

and ticks would have been around around that time, parasitizing dinosaurs. But they've been around a lot longer. Back in the dinosaur day, which I assume was 10 years, five years or whatever of time, was there ever like a giant spider? Yeah, there were quite a few, although they never got up to astronomical proportions, but a little over a foot.

Like the size of a soccer ball? Yeah, not as massive. As you increase, you would think over time you might have these giant species of arthropods because it's such an efficient body plan and their exoskeleton is so tough and keeps them safe. But as you kind of increase in size to a certain point, you get diminishing returns. It's a physics problem more than anything else. Kind of like if you imagine building a catapult, you can launch a rock super far distance. But if you build a catapult the size of a football field, it's not necessarily

going to be able to throw it equally as far for its size. Are any of your colleagues called Arthur? I don't think so. Because if they did, they should have a podcast called The Arthropod. That would fucking crush. Oh, shit. I've got to change my name now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. How many arachnids exist? You should call your podcast Spiders, shit. I gotta change my name now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. How many arachnids exist? You should call your podcast Spiders, man. Well, I didn't really fully answer the last question. I'm sorry. The earliest arachnids popped up in the Silurian period, which is about 400 to 450 million years ago. And it's only really important because it happened after the Ordovician, which was the first major extinction event in Earth's history around 450 million years ago. Before that, everything's in the ocean at this point. There's really not much land being formed. And so you have all these sea scorpions and early crustaceans and brachiopods and mollusks and stuff like that swimming around. And then a lot of that

taxa, about half of it got wiped out at the end of the ordovician and that's when you see the explosion of the arthropods really take off do you ever kill spiders ben uh very occasionally i don't really i don't have you know super strong feelings about it or anything but only if they're really in the way or i think they're a threat to something but no for the most part i just leave them alone i think they're like a spyglass and burn one to death over a short period of time. That's when you need that extra arm to masturbate, am I right? I'm pretty sure I did when I was a kid, to be honest with you, but no, not for a long time.

Okay. I feel like kids don't do that anymore. Where's that like burning a whole lot of ants in a fucking... Or like pouring salt on a slug. Oh, pouring salt on a slug. Does it get more fun than that? How we all didn't grow up to be serial killers i don't know yes yes we're not yeah not me either hey we are back with ben holdridge we're talking about arachnids how many arachnids are out there jim said seven billion people so he's thrown a couple more

arachnids in there nine billion well if we were going by the actual number of individuals, it's going to be a hell of a lot higher than that. There's probably trillions of them on the planet, but in terms of species, there's about a hundred thousand described species. And the majority of those are either spiders or mites. Those are the most diverse group make up about 80 to 90% of that. But there's, I think 10 or 11 other major groups, most of which have a few thousand species or a few hundred,

you know, like the scorpions. So if there's trillions of them and we're all afraid of them, why don't they rise up against us? I'm sure they would if they could. What do they want from us? They want to run the place. That's what everyone wants. They think the spiders want to run the place?

Yeah, they fucking do. Like move into your house rent free they leave cobwebs everywhere i think they were there before your house was there you know when you're like you're a teenager and you don't clean your room there's just cobwebs everywhere and your mom goes in with a vacuum and it's like a fucking genocide in there it's arachnid you're gonna keep going with nips and keep going yeah i like i like now make a chocolate spider candy called arachnids and sell it with your name on it. So many ideas here.

Arachnibs, that's a good idea. How do you milk them? Arachnibs. It's almost like an animal cookie though, or animal crack. Arachnibs. You dip them in chocolate. How do Arachnibs... Do you ever call... What do you call

when you put ice cream in in coca-cola that's called a spider everywhere in the world it's called a spider i think australia in australia it's called a spider yeah even in this is some australian bs even in mcdonald's if you get a frozen coke and you get some soft serve in the top they call it a spider everybody calls it a spider yeah yeah it's a spider. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a spider, man. Is there a reason? Ah, a bit of fun. I would assume probably because the Coke comes down,

like probably streams down the side. Maybe it looks like legs. I don't know. It's always been called a spider. If you go, can I have a spider? We don't call them a Coke float. We call them a spider, man. Never heard that.

Never been to Australia. I'm still hoping to get out there. So I'll check it out when I get there. You, what, you're a spider expert and you haven't that. Never been to Australia. I'm still hoping to get out there, so I'll check it out when I do. What, you're a spider expert and you haven't visited the Mecca? Like, come on. Have you tried flying to Australia recently? I don't think it's super simple right now.

I have. Don't get me started. How did it go? I quarantined and came home and lost a documentary where there was a spider. I milked. We've gone over this, Ben. Sorry, I'm not eyeballing it. But is Australia your number one stop for spiders?

Do we have the most? Because we pride ourselves on that. Actually, I don't think so. What? I'm sorry. If you come at me with some bullshit about South Africa, I'll fucking storm it off. No, South Africa neither.

It would have to be, I mean, if it were plausible, Central Africa, places like the Congo, the tropical forest is so dense there that the biodiversity is just off the charts. If you're looking for really crazy examples of extreme species, you've got to be somewhere around the equator, whether you're in the new world or the old world. But there are still really cool species everywhere, including in the United States. We've got some really cool ones. And Australia, of course, has some really extreme examples that people are, even people who don't like insects or arachnids are very aware of. I've never seen tarantulas. I've seen them with their hairy legs. But I've seen them in movies. I've seen them in zoos. I've never seen one in

the wild. Where would I see one of them? Really? Never? No, I've never seen a tarantula. I think you could see something, right? Have you ever seen a tarantula just walk around. I think you could see some, right? Have you ever seen a tarantula just walking around? Like in the desert? Yep. So the main way, if you really want to see them in the wild, especially down where you guys are, is it almost always happens

around September, October, because that's the time of year that the males are leaving their burrows to go find a female. And the same thing actually happens in funnel web spiders, which in Australia, that group is actually closer to tarantulas than it is to other spiders. And so certain times of the year, the males go out wandering for females, and that's when you're most likely to encounter both a tarantula and a Sydney funnel web. And that's when most of the

bites occur from males wandering, looking for females. And so in September, October, if you're in California, go walk around, you know, Ch hill state park joshua tree death valley anywhere north of the san gabriel's and you'll definitely see them i don't have to go far i can see them whenever yeah i won't do it but it's good to know i have the option so the huntsman spider in australia the huntsman that one's a very vicious looking spider that doesn't i believe have any venom in it because it's the one that my dad would you'd always see when it would be like it would be like in the revision mirror of your fucking car it would be like you have a web it'll just be sitting there and then your dad would go i don't worry about it mate it's just a huntsman they're harmless they look mean but they're not gonna hurt you and it's like a fucking i don't trust huntsmans i feel like

they're still gonna hurt me me. Is my dad correct? I was actually going to ask you about those. Cause being in Australia, you know, I've heard horror stories about Huntsman spiders, not because they're dangerous, but because they're so quick and they jump out and they're territorial. And I've heard people talking about them getting into cars and then they cause car accidents because they pop up all people that drive in or getting

under door handles and that sort of thing. Oh no, the Huntsman spider. No, the Huntsman Spider is a doer. You'll come in your room and then you'll go, oh, there's a Huntsman, and he'll be in the corner of a web in your bedroom. You come back, he's in the other fucking corner of the room. Off he goes. Are they big?

Off he goes. Oh, yeah, because in South Florida we have golden orb, I think they were called, that are really big. But I was always told they were dangerous. And then there was a small one shaped like a star i can't remember the name of that one in south florida was a uh six spotted crab like spiny or weaver gastric antha that'll bite you though the little tiny one that one's falling on my back and bit me when i was a kid to be fair all of these that we just talked about can bite, but none of them are known for having particularly potent venom.

So like a spider's aggression and their behavior is usually independent of the potency of their venom. Usually the strength of their toxins have to do with their own individual species history when it comes to the animals and the other species of animals they're preying on or that are preying upon it. That's kind of a pressure that drives the potency of venom. But in terms of like a huntsman, it definitely has it. It has venom, but it's not dangerous because it's an ambush predator. It runs down and pounces on stuff. And so it doesn't really need potent poisons to take care of it. And the daddy long legs.

Am I correct about that? Yeah, I was going to say that next. Is that a myth, the whole thing that's the most venomous, but it can't pierce your skin? I've heard that a million times. Yeah, that one's out there all over the place. It is in fact venomous and it can bite you. It only takes, if I remember right from school, about a 10th of a millimeter long fangs to pierce your skin and deliver venom, which is almost nothing. But their venom is not strong at all. Even compared to like a bee, it would be very mild. But that myth very likely came from people observing its hunting behaviors

and it's been known to eat all sorts of stuff including other spiders including dangerous spiders like black widows so people probably saw them eating black widows and just assumed oh it has to be more venomous but they're just quicker they're more agile so they're able to get in there and attack but if i had if i had 20 daddy long legs laying on me and they all bit at once, would that hurt me or is it still not enough? I'd be surprised if you even got red bumps. 30? I can do this all day.

We want to do an experiment on the Patreon. That would be an interesting experiment, but I don't think you'd have any problem with that species until the thousands. How do arachnids reproduce? We have an answer. How do arachnids reproduce?im said larva and then the woman eats the man the woman eats the man after having sex all the time doesn't it just emotionally no well the humans yeah but uh so most arachnids reproduce sexually

uh there's there's not always typical calculation like internal fertilization that you would picture with mammals or a lot of reptiles and stuff. Although some of them, like the harvest men, do actually have an intermittent organ that we might call a penis, although it doesn't resemble any penis that we're familiar with. But most of them reproduce sexually by passing packets of sperm to the female. Sometimes it's deposited on the substrate or the environment, and the male has to kind of coax the female into running into it or picking it up. But the U S postal service isn't what it used to be. Anything dangerous.

Some of them are asexual too. There are some mites and ticks and even some other groups that can kind of, but it's usually the female, because when you have a part of the genetic species, that means that a female is able to produce a haploid uh offspring that's a creature with only one copy of the genes because she only has her own copy there's no father or other parent putting in their genes so they can create basically a clone of themselves but whenever that happens it's a female unless it is a type of animal where their uh their gender is not determined by y chromosome

it's determined by a different combination of x chromosomes like in flies and stuff like that but even the ticks and mites that can reproduce asexually only do it on only do it under certain circumstances and even those asexually produced offspring will uh seek to reproduce sexually as well are they all carnivores or are they omnivores? That's a good question. And that's something for a long time I learned that they are all carnivorous. And for the most part, that's true. Being carnivorous is what you would consider the ancestral condition, meaning all of them naturally kind of have it.

But some taxes, some extreme examples have evolved other strategies. For instance, there's one, I can't remember exactly where it is, but there's a species of jumping spider called a Begira kiplingi, something like that. And it feeds almost exclusively on the Beltian bodies produced by acacias. And those are these tiny little nubs of fat and protein that the plant produces to coax ants into coming and protecting it but this spider has evolved to take advantage of it and just goes around picking off those nubs and eating almost exclusively on that but it's a rare rare example and yeah okay and we all know it's true but i kill

more flies than spiders right how many how many flies is this how many flies we'll get to that don't worry about that all right all worry about that what are spinnerets? Jim said little tiny spiders that go woo woo I'm just going to say these three together little tiny spiders that go woo woo, what's spider silk made of? whatever the ass juice is and then probably corn and why don't they get stuck in their webs?

because they have non-stick hands what are spinnerets? what's the silk made of? why don't they get stuck in there? let's talk about that this assumption that I didn't get these right is very... Yeah, it's weird. You got five. A few of them you nailed, but I wasn't expecting you to. Not this part.

So spinnerets are the special silk-producing organs of the spider, of spiders in general. They usually have between two and eight, always an even number, and it's almost always on the abdomen facing backwards and down. And they're kind of, depending on the species, they can be short or very long, but they're these semi-articulate appendages that move in concert or independently. And on the tips of them are tons and tons of these little spigots. And the spigots are the actual tiny openings from which the silk passes through. And those are connected to the silk glands inside the spider, where there's this viscous mix of water and proteins like spidroins and structural proteins and enzymes and all kinds of crap. And it gets funneled through these tubes and pushed out the spinnerets. And as it's going, the arrangement of the proteins and the molecules are kind of forced together to form these formations and linkages, almost like crystallization.

these formations and linkages almost like crystallization. So when it comes out, it becomes this very fibrous, elastic, strong, semi-solid that is silk, which is pretty damn unique. Why don't they get stuck in their own webs? So he actually said they walk carefully and their hands aren't sticky. That's actually true. That's the right answer. That one caught me off guard.

So they have spiders. It's a little more complex than that. Same reason dogs don't walk in dog shit man that one's even weird i don't even have a good answer for that one but i don't know how they never do it but um anyways on on spider legs on their tarsus the the last segment of their legs what you would call their feet they have these two little claws called tarsal claws and a lot of insects and other arthropods have this too. It's how they're able to climb on surfaces and stuff. And those are basically a different mixture than the rest of their body. And so it doesn't stick to the web when they touch it. They also have these little sette, those, you know, hair-like fibers on them that are in a cluster there that also kind of repels the stickiness of the web and also not all spider silk

is sticky so they actually have to produce a special type of glue silk that comes out in a liquid form that they attach to their normal lines and that is what is actually binding most prey items when they run into it although some of them have dry silk too that is spider webs beneficial to our ecosystem like i guess with the catching of flies or whatever but like you know, it always feels like a pain in the ass when you see a spiderweb or you walk through one. Should I be thankful that they're around? I would say so. I mean, it's hard to make it not sound like a hippie answer,

but they are for the most part, good for the environment. They do kill a shitload of flies. I'm sorry, Jim, but you're not going to win that one. How many a day? How many a day? I can, I can. Depends on the species. Completely depends on the species. But some like that gastric antha, that spider. I can kill as many in the room as many in the room you know what because i know this was gonna maybe be maybe one of your dinner party you can throw it out there because you have more than one dinner party you can just tell them right now sure so it i've read a couple studies that have estimated i mean it's an estimate and it's

a hard thing to estimate but that is estimated that spiders eat one to two times as much weight in insects as all of humanity eats in meat and fish every year. So we're talking 400 to 800 million tons of insects. That's insane. It is pretty likely that if spiders didn't exist, flies would rule the world because there's just too many of them. They breed too fast and they do too many things. But all sorts of flies.

As long as you've got that blue zapping light, we're all good. Yeah. I got one of those too. Yeah, I don't know. What animals hunt spiders? Jim said humans. Sharks, what if they could? Water spiders.

Is there water spiders? Well, that's a different question, but yeah, there are. And there's a couple different answers to that. There are true. I don't think so, but I would not be surprised. Hold on. That's a second part of the answer. So the first type, there are true spiders, actual spiders that fish. They're called fishing spiders. And there are other types of wolf spiders that hunt on the surface of the water. And similar to the structures that make them not stick to their web, they can break up the surface tension of water and run right across its surface. And then when they see something under it, they'll actually dive under the surface and an air bubble will be attached to their abdomen where they can still breathe through from their spherical openings. And they'll go under the water with that bubble, like a scuba diver and grab a fish or a salamander, a frog, anything like anything they see. Now, now, now spiders actually walk up to bodies of water and drink, right?

If they see a little drop of water or something, they actually drink, right? Depends on the species. There's not really a hard and fast rule. Some of them will get their moisture or their liquid for their diet not from the solid foods because they're not really eating solid foods. They liquefy or emulsify the prey items that they eat. And a lot of arthropods like insects that they would be feeding on it doesn't take a lot inside of their system to kind of

liquefy everything that's what their venom is doing is partially digesting everything and they kind of drink it out like a slurry most spiders can neutral it solid yeah like a neutral yeah they put a little uh chia seed in there oh cool some flax seed if i ate a poisonous spider would i die that's a good question uh it would probably depend on the spider this is like a child no these are good questions and one of the reasons why i really got into this this subject matter it's not even like i grew up loving insects or spiders or anything i kind of just loved all all animals and i like seeing them and discovering them out in the wild, just observing them. And if you really like all animals, you're going to run into a lot more arachnids and arthropods and insects than you will anything

else. And a lot of people, they see them all the time, but they don't know a whole lot about them because most people are just put off by them. But if you were to eat a spider, as long as it didn't puncture your tissue and put the venom into an area where it's not supposed to be. It's just a cocktail of enzymes and water and proteins. Things that make up a lot of other. I'd kill it first. I'm not an idiot. Of course.

Yeah. I would crush its head and then eat it. Because this is relevant to a lot of animals, obviously. Right. You know, animals go up and eat these toxic spiders all the time. So they have to have some type of defense against it if they put it in their mouth it bites them in the mouth when they die that's probably not going to pass they're not going to be able to pass on those genes to another generation you're going to end up with animals

that aren't eating spiders or that have defenses against them and keep doing it and a lot of animals build up immunity or resistance over time because they kind of co-evolve with spiders or other arach with spiders or other arachnids or other creatures yeah so what's examples of it yeah what's eating in terms of what's hunting them birds are probably the biggest birds and reptiles but just about anything will eat them if given the opportunity but biggest in terms of population control what's actually taking them out and keeping them from exploding more are wasps. Wasps are one of the biggest population controllers for all arthropods. If you see a spider or an

insect, there is a very high likelihood that at least one species of parasitic wasp specializes in parasitizing that animal. And they're usually parasitoids. So they lay their eggs or their larva inside or on that creature, which feeds on them while they're still alive right up until the time they're ready to pupate and become an adult, and then it kills it and moves off. Okay, so how – And there's a lot of those. Real shit going on now.

How close are we to spiders? You know, there's a thing when you live in London that you're always two metres away from a rat, right? The other day when I woke up, I keep a glass of water next to the bed, right? As many people do. And I woke up and there was a spider drowned in my glass of water, right? I don't know what his tale was, whether he committed suicide or it was an accident or what happened. It's none of my business. But okay. The question is, are they crawling in my mouth while I'm asleep? Probably not. I don't know who started that myth, but if they are, it's just a dumb spider.

In this room right now, are there spiders near me? Most likely. Not a ton of them, especially because a lot of spiders, a lot of arthropods, they're very sensitive to things like temperature and humidity. So they don't do all that well in developed habitats or micro habitats like building. so they don't do all that well in developed habitats or micro habitats like building that's one of the reasons why all of us have seen black widows all over the place but they're very rarely inside your house because they're just not the right conditions for them but others like house spiders or cellar spiders which is what we call daddy long legs if they can get into a house and there's a constant flow of critters like there's ants in your kitchen or there's mites or

whatever they'll stay and they'll keep eating the ants. Oh, they eat the ants. I fucking hate ants more than I hate spiders. You don't eat ants, you eat termites. Oh, God, it goes on and on. It's that whole thing. I've got to get an ant to kill the termites. I've got to get a spider to kill the ants. And eventually I've got a gorilla in my house.

Ants will eat spiders too if given the opportunity. If there's enough of them and there's one on the ground or not in a web or anything like that, yeah. There's not a whole lot that a swarm of ants can't take care of. We asked if they were social. Is that the answer? Yeah, social. Jim said I don't think so. He rarely sees them hanging out together. You might have an answer. You might have a spider nest or something, but I feel like once they grow up, they don't talk to each other. And for the most part, that's the general general rule there's always exceptions in groups that are this large but yeah for the most part they are solitary they for the most part hunt solid hunt by themselves although there are a few families mostly in the tropics that have evolved uh social i got a good

joke i got a good joke do it it's because they are always uh sitting at home on the web. That's good. Carry on. Very, very good. Carry on. So sociality or colonial behaviors have evolved in a few different families independently, mostly in the tropics. I don't remember all of the families, but one of them is the sheet web spiders. And you've probably seen them around. They're small.

They're innocuous. They create these kind of flat sheets of silk as their webs anchored. And normally they catch little tiny things like flies, but in the tropics, certain species will link hundreds and hundreds of individual webs together and basically create a silken canopy. And this benefits them in a few ways by being able to cooperatively take out parasites and predators that come near the web. And also if large stuff that they wouldn't ever be able to handle on their own were to fall into the web, whether it's a grasshopper, a beetle, or even a bird or something, they might be able to, you know, pounce on it all together and take it down and then all of them

can feed off this. How long do they use one web? Like when I walk through one of their webs, do they go, oh, for fuck's sake! That was my childhood home. It took me forever to make that. Or they're like, I don't care. I'm making another web today. I make webs every day. Some of them are like that. How long do they use a web for? You kind of answered it. Some of them will build webs that they'll leave for quite a while like the cobweb spiders or comb-footed spiders. Those are the family that the widows belong to. They create these weird, amorphous, asymmetrical webs, usually close to the ground. And they're hard to reconstruct because they're just kind of random. And it takes a lot of energy to build a web. orb weavers will take down and basically recycle and rebuild a brand new orb web every night,

usually every evening. And you can see them doing it just after dark in a lot of places. And they'll be walking in a slow circle around the web, slowly moving towards the center. And they do that every single day, every single day. All right. Camel spider. Jim said it bites on Wednesdays. It has two bumps. Wrong? A little. Camel spiders are another order of arachnid just like the spiders or the um pseudoscorpions or scorpions or anything like that and they're actually a pretty great big group there's over a thousand species and um you've probably seen one before do you guys remember shit it was almost 20 years ago now but during the start of the iraq war there was like a meme going around myspace of this giant evil looking spider that these soldiers were holding up. And it looked like

it was a foot long and it started all these rumors about it. That was a camel spider, but it was also a forced perspective shot. They were holding it right up next to the camera, like Frodo and Gandalf, you know, so it was only about four inches long, not a foot, but they're a really cool group. They have a few common names like sun spider and wind scorpion, but they're not scorpions or spiders. They're their own things. They're not venomous. They're not dangerous, but they do have incredibly large, strong chelicera that function that look very much like the claws of a crab or of a scorpion with little teeth. And they basically use that to pounce on stuff, shred it apart and eat it. And people have been bitten by them before.

And it's just there's no toxin or anything, but it's a very powerful bite. And they're also a very fast moving photophobic species. So a lot of the rumors probably come from that behavior where people accidentally lifted up a log or a rock and expose them during daytime. And they basically freak out and want to get to the dark as fast as possible including your shade or your shadow or under your shoes so if you saw one of these freaky looking five inch desert spiders sprinting at you at full speed i'd probably freak out a little bit too uh speaking of scorpions why do scorpions glow under a uv light he said they're the flashness of the arachnids uh for a long time i heard it had to do with the weather proofing and the thickness and the specific nature of their cuticle which is what makes up their exoskeleton but there's been some

more recent research that shows it might actually be a way for them to find and communicate with other members of their own species so even if you cover the eyes of scorpions some researchers have shown that they're still able to locate each other under UV light. So that kind of implies that either their cuticle itself or other structure is seeing and detecting the UV light. They're like wraiths, maybe. And then Jim says spiders lay eggs, scorpions lay eggs, right?

Wrong, right, wrong, wrong, wrong, right, right. Spiders generally lay eggs. Scorpions do not. Scorpions like some sharks and snakes are ovoviviparous. So they have eggs that hatch inside the mother and then are birthed out live. And then they usually crawl onto the mom's back. What was on the tip of your tongue? The thing you just said. What was it?

I don't like it. Archaeopteryx. Archaeopteryx. Ovoviviparous? Doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. I just know that scorpions don't layx. I was just going to say that. Viparous? Doesn't matter. Okay. Yeah, it really doesn't matter. I just know that scorpions don't like eggs. I know that, yeah. Okay.

Yeah, and the little baby scorpions crawl up onto the mom's back and ride there for a couple weeks until they're a little bit stronger. So here's a couple questions we're going to lump together. So are any spiders and scorpions truly deadly? Jim said yes, of course. Are they worth being afraid of? They have the potential to kill you? Yes.

And then talk a little bit about venom and poison when we're in there because he he just went on the thing about funnel web spiders i think i got the venom and poison right no i think i think you oh actually no yeah i know you said poison something you can eat venom is injected in you i think you might have gone there but yeah but like the the spiders and scorpions like should we be afraid of them are they deadly like just maybe kind of speak to that well he gave pretty good answers to this um for the most part not really but there's always regional exceptions and the sydney funnel web is a perfect example if you're growing up in eastern australia and especially if you have children or elderly parents or anyone who's vulnerable you should probably know that the sydney funnel web is around what it looks like

what to do if you happen to come across one just just like the redback, just like rattlesnakes in California. You don't really need to be afraid of them, but if you're out jogging, you better know that they're there just because knowledge can help you avoid a lot of dangerous situations. And so when it comes to spiders, there's really only four groups that are really bad for genera. One of them is the australian funnel web spiders like the sydney the redbacks and the black widows are in another genus the brown recluse is by itself and then the brazilian wandering spiders and those are probably the most dangerous not venomous but the most dangerous and harm the most people every year and it's just because of where

they live the fact that they're a little bit aggressive like the sydney funnel web and they tend to live in areas where people don't have access to antivenom or proper... Well, the funnel web, you sort of have to look for it, though, don't you? Like, for people who don't know, the funnel web is... Is it big? It's about... Moderate.

Moderate's about the size of a quarter. It can get bigger. You know, you can get bigger ones. But so it's called the funnel web because it's in crevices of rocks and it makes a funnel of a web it doesn't do a great big web so you never walk through a funnel web spider but if you lift up a rock or something like that i've treaded on them in shoes and found like them on the soles of my feet yeah really yeah yeah yeah so and it's like if i walked through barefoot i would have been in Yeah. Yeah. And most of the time when people get bitten by funnel webs or Brazilian wandering spiders, it's because they're out.

It's a male out looking for a female. And in the Sydney funnel web, actually, the male has a compound in its venom that the female doesn't have. So all of the registered deaths from Sydney funnel webs were from male bites when they were out looking for females. Looking for sex. Looking for sex. Exactly.

Men, the worst um they usually get into shoes or houses and stuff like that and then people just kind of accidentally and the poison venom jim said you can eat poison venoms injected into you is that that is as good a simple answer as there is so venom has to be delivered through fangs spines uh teeth or spurs you know so spiders are venomous with their fangs, scorpions are venomous with their tails, platypi are venomous, males anyway, with the spurs on the back of their feet. And then poison is usually meant to be ingested or sometimes breathed in or contacted like poison ivy. Yeah, no one ever goes, oh, I'm feeling terrible. I got some food venom the other day.

Yeah. You can, though. If you eat, you know, uncooked or I'm sorry, improperly, improperly prepared puffer fish or something, you can get tetrodotoxin, which is really dangerous. Yeah, the puffers. Yeah, that's what they eat that you got to get the sushi prepared right. Otherwise, you might die. Are all ticks parasitic? And what about mites? And then he said they might be.

Was that a pun? It was. Okay. So ticks are obligate parasites, almost exclusively of vertebrates. So they have to get blood from vertebrates. And females have to get a lot of it in order to create and produce their eggs. And that's why when you see a tick that's all swollen and stretched out, that's a female. And she took all that blood because she's in the midst of making eggs. And Jim brought up the tick

paralysis. And that's a real thing in the United States, all over the world, actually. There are a few different groups that can do it, mostly Ixodes ticks and derma center ticks. And in Australia, it's a big problem. Tick paralysis affects livestock. It can affect people, pets, all sorts of things. The only thing is it has to be a female because they are secreting a neurotoxin in their saliva, but it takes a long time for it to build up. So tick paralysis usually happens after two or three days of a tick feeding on you. And that's why it's kind of rare in people because you're going to notice. We shower, you know. Yeah.

Wow. Some of us. Yeah. And then, and mites are not parasitic? Some are, some are not. Mites are a very large group and they're actually more than one group. The evolutionary relationships of mites and ticks are still being sorted out because they're just such a ridiculously large and diverse group.

But in terms of mites especially, you can find individual species and families that perform all sorts of life histories. So there are parasitic species that are on pretty much all types of animals you can imagine, from birds, reptiles, humans. All three of you have it in your eyelashes right now, demodex mites. They live on insects. Some of them are parasitic. Some of them are commensal or even mutualistic meaning they're they're good to have around and a lot of them are just free living uh looking for little critters to eat or fungus everything are there countries with no uh spiders that are deadly because i remember like britain always goes on they have the asp and when it comes to snakes and that's all they've got because the

british when i was living in england the the english will oh i wouldn't go to australia there's so many deadly things there that might kill me right that's a good impersonation um but uh no new zealand has no predators i think it has deadly spiders it has no predators as such i'm just throwing it out there um because actually I think that was a pretty good guess. New Zealand is about as isolated as it gets in terms of a major landmass. It's like Hawaii. There are no endemic snakes, as far as I know,

at least venomous snakes, but there is one type of black widow called the katipo, and it's a close relative of the redback. It looks kind of like a redback with a different pattern, but just like all black widows, it is potentially. Oh, no. I got eaten by a katipo. That sounds right New Zealand.

I love that. Oh, no, katipo came to get me, bro. Hopefully you feel better. And with the ticks, sorry. I was going to go on. The only reason the kiwi bird exists is a blind, flightless animal because there's no predators. It can only exist in New Zealand just bumbling around. And then I think lastly here with the ticks,

you mentioned paralysis as a disease humans can get. Anything else? There's a big one I think you missed, but maybe you don't have it in Australia. So the rest of the diseases that people can get from ticks and some animals are usually Lyme disease. Absolutely. Yeah, Lyme disease. That's a big one.

Lyme disease is a bacterium, Borrelia, and most of the diseases spread by ticks are bacteria. Anaplasmosis, babesiosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, stuff like that.

Although in other parts of the world, there are viruses that are also vectored by ticks. But for the most part, when you're thinking of the big diseases, it's bacteria that are doing it. And Lyme disease is prevalent. Is it the United States it's mostly prevalent in or is it?

Yeah, it's really prevalent in the Midwest and the Northeast coast, especially in certain habitats. So like yesterday, you were telling me about walking through dune grass and twigs and picking up all these ticks. The dune grasses are very dominant in the intercoastal areas in the East Coast. And so the ticks love that. There's also a lot of dry seasonal brush and ticks. I don't think we covered it on here, but ticks perform a behavior to help them find hosts where they basically go up to the tip

of a blade of grass or a twig, especially over a game trail or where animals are going to be traveling a lot. And they quest. So they basically blindly reach out with their arms because they don't have any eyes. And when something walks by, they just grab it and cling on. And if it's a host, they start feeding. And you were saying that Lyme disease isn't prevalent in the West Coast,

like in California and stuff where we live, right? Yeah. So Lyme disease, there's not really any temperature or climatic region why Lyme wouldn't be over here. And the main reason we don't have Lyme in the West Coast is actually because of the lizard. Western fence lizards, those little guys you see on your fence in the backyard and all over your house, actually have a protein in their blood that essentially inoculates the feeding ticks. Mostly it's juvenile ticks that are feeding on them. But when the tick feeds on them,

the blood has this protein that actually kills the Borrelia bacterium inside them so that the tick is no longer infective and can't pass on the disease. So don't kill the lizards. Yeah. We're out with lizards. Yeah. Okay. Well,

you got to keep all the animals. Lizards are cool. Okay. Well, I think we learned everything about arachnids that you can learn. That's such a small subject, but I don't know, man.

There's a lot of stuff. Yeah. That was a joke, Ben. Okay. But, but before we leave, we have a dinner party facts. We ask our guests to give our listeners or viewers some sort of fact about arachnids.

This is what you're going to do today that they might not know to impress people because you always want to impress people about arachnids. What do you got? All right. So one I fairly recently discovered is that they um a few years ago discovered that certain species of spiders like the redbacks and the brown widows perform what's called traumatic insemination and so when a female it's not a great name these terms would have been a lot more acceptable like three or four years ago but so we have a word for it or four years ago but so we have a word for it it's even a little bit worse than what you're thinking of because so it usually has to do with a uh just a premature female spider who is getting

close to maturity because their uh genital organs they're physically not fully formed until they molt the final time into adulthood. But certain spiders, the males of certain spiders will seek out these females that are just about to become mature. And they'll basically bite and break through their cuticle and inject sperm directly into their hemolymph or their bloodstream, basically. And it will migrate and they can become impregnated before they're even fully mature and this is a behavior yeah i look forward to saying that at a dinner party it's a weird one that i recently found out i'll be chained to a nice looking girl and go you know when the spider's not fully developed the genitals the genitals aren't even there. It's an infant girl. An older man will come and inject sperm into its veins.

So are you eating the fish? What did you eat? Ever know Harvey Weinstein? Okay. Well, Ben, thanks for being here. Go to his website, a littlewildphotography.com. You can buy his book on Amazon. We should give hugs to the bugs and the rugs,

Volume 1, The Amazing Arachnids. Thank you for being here. We learned a lot. I know there's a lot more to learn, but we did learn a lot. I like this one, Ben. This is fun for me. Okay. When you're at a dinner party, when you're at a party

and someone walks up to you and goes, you know, spiders walk on all eight of their legs, point with the arm hanging out of your chest and go, I don't know about that, and then run away on six of their legs. Point with the arm hanging out of your chest and go, I don't know about that, and then run away on six of your legs. Good night, Australia.