Spider Sense Part 2: Unraveling the Secrets of Arachnids

Join us for part two of our exciting conversation on spiders with Sebastian Echeverri, Communications Specialist in Science & Digital Media for the Xerces Society. 

Sebastian completed his PhD, studying why and how paradise jumping spiders get their audience's attention when pulling off their fanciest dance moves. He has also written a field guide for spiders and has a collection of pet arachnids.

Thank you for listening! For more information go to xerces.org/bugbanter.

Transcript

Rachel: Welcome to Bug Banter with the Xerces Society where we explore the world of invertebrates and discover how to help these extraordinary animals. If you want to support our work go to xerces.org/give.

Matthew: Hi. I'm Matthew Shepherd in Portland, Oregon.

Rachel: And I'm Rachel Dunham in Missoula, Montana.

Matthew: We're back again for the part two of our spider conversation with Sebastian Echeverri, who's the communications specialist in science and digital media for Xerces Society. So welcome back! Thanks for coming again and talking more, Sebastian.

Sebastian: Absolutely! Rachel, Matthew, thanks for having me again. I’m looking forward to it.

Rachel: So, Sebastian I have to ask because you did your PhD on the paradise jumping spider and them dancing. 

Sebastian: Yes.

Rachel: Can you just briefly tell us a little bit about your PhD work, and I'm wondering, like, do all jumping spiders dance? And is the dancing unique to only this spider? I just think it's so cool.

Sebastian: It's very fun. Let me grab my paradise jumping spider. There we go. Paradise jumping spiders are—this is the one I studied for my PhD. This is Habronattus pyrrithrix, or the fiery-haired paradise jumping spider. Paradise jumping spiders are in the genus Habronattus and they are found in the Americas—mostly North and Central America, but there are some species in South America, as well. 

Sebastian: And they are well known, if you know your spiders, for being—the males are very colorful, and they have these really fascinating dance performances that they do as a courtship display for females. What you—most likely people may have seen more—were commonly on the Internet, I would say—are peacock spiders. Which are these guys from Australia that have—they have this like really cool structure on their butt, where like, it can unfold into like a fan that has like all these cool designs on it. 

Sebastian: And you've—likely, if you Google like dancing jumping spider, you've likely seen a peacock spider dancing. And you might have been like, oh, they're in Australia. I'm never gonna see a spider wave its butt around and dance and do all these things. But if you live in the Americas, you can go outside. And then basically—I believe they're in every state in the U.S. at least one species—and in lower parts of certain parts of Canada—you can find paradise jumping, which basically do the exact same deal as the peacock spiders.

Sebastian: They're a little bit bigger. And they don't have the butt flap. But some of them do have shiny butts they shake around. It's one of my favorite species, Habronattus decorus, which has a shiny pink butt that it like waves around like this.

Sebastian: This general behavior, colorful males that dance and sing to court females has evolved in two completely separate continents. That is sort of an underlying theme that shows up a lot in jumping spider evolution. Most jumping spiders you'll see won't be as colorful as paradise jumping spiders or peacock spiders. But they do have this courtship, that is basically every species, where the males will put on a performance for the females to try to convince them to allow them to mate.

Sebastian: The thing about spiders in general—one of the reasons that they've been around for over 300 million years is that they are very good at what they do, and that is being little predators of things roughly their same size, which includes other spiders. And a lot of—for jumping in particular, we think that they evolved originally as spider hunters. Their vision allowed them to notice like web building spiders and stuff from further than the web—outside of the web, and so they could plan attacks.

Sebastian: And so they have a history of being spider hunters. Jumping spiders will happily eat their own species. And so when you are a spider that wants to mate, you have this challenge of like, "Okay, I see I finally found a female. I think she might be the same species. I need to tell her, 'Hey, I'm the same species as you. Don't eat me. Hey, I would be a good mate. Don't eat me. Whether or not you've already mated, you should mate with me again. Please don’t eat me.'"

Sebastian: And so they need ways to communicate with that, and so—communicate that message. And in jumping spiders, in particular, because they have good vision, the sort of song component of this is a thing that almost all spiders do. So you'll see things like tarantulas, which have like very tiny eyes, they will drum. They will do vibration stuff to talk to each other. But in jumping spiders we've already—everyone—the song was already kind of there. 

Sebastian: And then, well, now, we have this extra vision stuff to play with, so we can add movement to it. Because jumping spider eyes are really attracted to movement. So we can have movement. We can synchronize it with the sounds. We could do stuff. And then it's like, in jumping spiders that evolved color vision—because not all of them have full color vision, but it's evolved many times in many different lineages of jumping spiders. So it's like, "Oh, now we have colors to play with. Okay, now we can be like impressive in different ways." And then they start getting these like complex different ways of finding new ways to be more interesting and more captivating.

Sebastian: And also you have to realize, these males are making the case to a female that has been approached by like 20 males in the last like two hours, while she's trying to find food and not get eaten. And males are just running up to her and dancing, and they might not even be the same species. So you have to really like do something to stand out from your competition. 

Sebastian: And so they've—in some of these groups of jumping spiders like peacock spiders, paradise spiders, there are a couple of really cool ones. There's some cool ones in in like Southeast Asia. There's some—what's the oh—there's the genus Mexigonus in Central America. It happens over and over that you get these like really dramatic dance performances. And I do mean these are like— this is like if I'm doing a one-man stage show where I am all of the musicians, I am the dance choreographer, I am the performer. And I have to do it on like a moving stage that is following an audience member that might be trying to leave. That is what these male jumping spiders do.

Sebastian: And so, part of what I studied is how they are paying attention to whether their audience is paying attention, and choosing when to do different dance moves. And it turns out they are. It's really quite cool. They're noticing when the female's looking, when she's looking away, and deploying certain dance moves when they have her attention. 

Sebastian: Because the thing about jumping spider vision—that is actually similar to human vision—that you might not perceive because your brain tries to not let you perceive it—is in jumping spiders, only two of the eyes can see color Or at least in paradise spiders. I think it's true in all of them. I don't think all of them—I don't think there's a jumping spider that expresses color vision in all the eyes, but, in most of them.

Sebastian: With something as diverse as spiders, I can never say all. Because I can guarantee you, there's like one—there's like one little weirdo somewhere that's like, nah, I wanna do it different. And that includes—the way paradise see color like I don't have—that is another one of my trap card rants, but like we don't even have time for it. Because the way that they see color—it is unique amongst all animals. It is also uniquely bad, but they do it. Anyway, they only see color out of the two biggest eyes. So if you have a bunch of colors on you, and you want to show colors to someone, you have to make sure that they're looking at you with the eyes that can see color.

Sebastian: So they notice if the female is like locking eyes with them. Same thing as—you might not notice—human—the cells in your eyes that see color are only looking at about a 60 degree cone in front of you. As your eyes move around, your brain tags things and says, "Remember, this is that color." But if you're staring straight ahead, and someone introduces a new object to like the edges of your field of view, and you don't let yourself look at it—and you really will want to look at it—you won't know what color it is until it gets to a certain point. 

Sebastian: And it's the same thing that—again spiders have this, it's just all the way around their head. And so they will notice things before they know what color it is. And so a lot of the things that they do to get attention—the fun part about this research was like, oh, this feels very human. Because what would you do if you're trying to like get your friend to notice you from across the room? You'd like wave your arm really big, right? But if you're like five feet away from them you wouldn't do this [bigger wave], you just be like eh [smaller wave]. And one of the things I learned in my research is that like, yeah, if they're closer to each other, they will do smaller movements.

Sebastian: And then when they're further away, they'll do bigger movements. Secause when they're further away, those bigger movements—they need to do a bigger movement to like have the same sort of impact as if they were closer. And so there's a lot of like really fun, very human things. Again, because we've had this like fun parallel evolution of becoming animals that use vision and color to talk to each other. That is one of the reasons I love talking about jumping spiders—‘cause it’s like one of the easiest spiders for you to kind of like get into the mindset of.

Rachel: That's interesting. I was thinking about the birds-of-paradise, too, and how colorful the males are, and their dancing and their courtships displays. And it's so interesting that certain spiders have also developed sort of that same courting. Yeah, thank you for describing all that. That must have been very interesting to study. And I could ask you a gazillion more questions about it. 

Rachel: But I kind of wanted to take a little bit of a step back, because we're talking about spiders, and popular culture has given us quite a range of perspectives when it comes to these creatures. You know, you think about Charlotte's Web and—I don't know, maybe that's aging me, but—they're like, cute little spider that saves the day. And you think of fondness. You know, like, oh, Charlotte—oh see, you have the book. Good! I grew up on that movie.

Sebastian: There's a fun—there's a story why I have this book. But please finish your question.

Rachel: Oh, I'm sure there is. You know, but then I think of movies that, you know, make you fearful of spiders. I think of Lord of the Rings, because I just watched it. Would you say that spiders get a bad rap? Are they really that scary? Should we be fearful of them? And do they play an important ecological role? Like, why should we care about spiders?

Sebastian: So those are all really good questions, and I'll like to address them separately. Should you be afraid of a spider? Should be feel bad that you're afraid of a spider? I think there's no like—so this is the thing about spider fear, is that like—it took me a while to like kind of appreciate, as someone who like didn't grow up with as much of that—there are very, very good reasons why many people are afraid of spiders. 

Sebastian: It's just not the reasons that you think they are. I think, for a lot of people that say they're scary, they're dangerous, they might attack me, they might kill me, they might hurt me. And that's like, you know, the common reason when you ask someone why. Or like, oh, they're icky. They're gross. Right? 

Sebastian: But when you look at how spider fears develop in people, the reason that so many of us fear spiders is because we've been taught by—not by personal experiences with spiders usually—but by culture and learning from other humans to be afraid of spiders. Particularly in Western culture in like North America. where 99.9% of spiders like physically cannot give you lasting injuries, and the ones that do like really don't want to mess with you.

Sebastian: There are places in the world where there are spiders that have stronger venom, and it like makes more sense to like give them space. But there is nowhere in the world where there are spiders that eat people, that want to attack people. Because these animals are—even the biggest spider in the world—again, you know, the size of this piece of paper, right? It's body—that's its leg span, but its body is like two balls like that big. It weighs like, I think less than a kilogram, maybe around a kilogram. 

Sebastian: Like, a child could punt it, and it would die immediately. These animals are strong for their scale, but in terms of like, say, compared to like a beetle or something, a spider is more of a glass cannon, usually. Like they have good fangs, they're good at attacking prey, but they are not very sturdy. And they are aware that Godzilla-sized creatures can destroy them, sort of immediately. 

Sebastian: To give you a sense of this... Like I said earlier, spiders evolved around 300 million years ago, or a little before that. Like 315, 300. I think our earliest fossil is like right at 300. But there's evidence that they were around a little bit before that. Which means that spiders are older than the Atlantic Ocean. They are older than all dinosaurs. And they survived multiple mass-extinction events. And if spiders were the type of animal that would run out and bite giant creatures, like human-sized creatures, they would have all died when the dinosaurs showed up. But instead they survived. And then survived past dinosaurs, right?

Sebastian: So they're aware of the fact that we can squish them easily and they all—their choice, when they have the opportunity to make that choice, is to leave the situation. Always the number one choice. Sometimes they try to make you leave the situation. Like some larger tarantulas will like threaten to bite you. But their preference is always to run away. 

Sebastian: Those are all a bunch of facts that are like, you know, good reasons why on paper you shouldn't be afraid of spiders. And yet that might—is usually not anything that will change a person's personal feelings or fear about spiders. And that's because when we learn these things as kids, right? When we grow up, particularly in Western culture, there is a—there's no innate biological fear of spiders that we know of. All the research—the most recent research that we have shows that if you show like a baby that does not know what a spider is, you know, the images of animals, and you measure their responses, they are interested in spiders. They like—their brain notices them very quickly. But it is a neutral response.

Rachel: Hmm!

Sebastian: And what will happen is that interest can be means that you learn about spiders really quickly, and then that knowledge gets locked in, right? Or like, it's just like anything you learn. You learn something, and like that's what you know about it. And so people at an early age noticed spiders and often, if you just see a spider over there, like it might just be a spec, and like you don't know what's going on. And what'll either happen—in sort of like, my mix of like looking at research and just general thinking about this—is a lot of the time, you'll have kids who like maybe show an interest. And then adults, or older children will say, "Oh, that's gross" or "Ew kill it," or like, "Oh, my God! That's horrible!" Right? And so they learn that is the response I should have when I see this animal. 

Sebastian: Not because the spider did anything, or like—it was just kind of there, right? Usually. But people learn that. And you can see there's like a switch over in kids, where kids will show an interest in these animals, and often—and especially, it feels like, you're in a home that's like spider-neutral, sider-positive. Kids will go to school. I have friends who have kids these ages where it's happening. They'll send them to school, and they'll come back, and they'll say like spiders are gross. And like they'll ask the kid like why. And the kid is like, "Oh, that's just what I heard." Right? ‘Cause like when you're a kid, you really wanna fit in. You wanna like—you learn what behavior you're modeling from your—from around you. And because it's a thing that your brain is like, "I gotta notice. It's something I need to pay attention to." That learning happens really quickly. 

Sebastian: But you could learn the other direction, too. You can learn to be fascinated by them. The reason that people are afraid of spiders is almost always—that's what you learn to expect. And then people often, I've noticed, avoid interacting with spiders when they can spot them at a distance. And then the interactions they often have are surprising. It's like, "Oh, I went in my basement late at night. I turn on the light, and a spider ran across the floor." And you know, for that spider, it's like—it just got like blinded, right? And it's like, "Oh, God, what's happening? I'm gonna get out of here and I'm gonna run at full speed away from this thing." But for a person, seeing that, that's really startling. It's like. " I didn't expect that. I feel unsafe now, because that's a thing that I sort of have flagged as potentially unsafe. And that is my memory of interacting with spiders. I had a really bad time with that."

Sebastian: And if that's all you have, of course you're gonna not want to spend time with this animal. Because, like every—and like again, they show up in movies, or video games as like, "We need an enemy, a villain character! It's a spider. What does it do? It has a hive mind, and it controls other spiders. Isn't that what ants do? I don't know. Just put the spider in it." Right? Like, but they get thrown in there. 

Sebastian: So it's like, okay, you just run your list like, "I don't know about this. What in my brain reminds me of this?" And then you come up with the decision, because that's what your brain's trying to do. It’s trying to like—new thing. But how do I feel about it? And how do I react? And the safe reactions to like leave it. Which means that people don't get a chance to have interactions with spiders on their own terms, and they don't get a chance to build positive interactions.

Sebastian: Now the flip side of this is that like I know more than I can count on my hands, and probably even more than that, famous, world-renowned, really, really good spider scientists that—and photographers—that started being terrified of them when they started their research, or when they started taking photos of them. And maybe they had to start researching them, or whatever, just because, like, that's what their advisor told them to do. Or they were just like, "Uhhh the spider's not moving, so I'm gonna like try practicing photography on it because it's not moving." And in that process, they completely flipped to the other side. And like say, "Oh, wow! They're actually really interesting."

Sebastian: Because you have the opportunity to build up experiences—one, with the real animal, instead of, like the monster version that's like in shows and stuff—and two, on your own terms, where it's like, "I chose to go up the spider. I can leave the interaction when I want to. I'm in control." And I think that's really important for anyone, with any sort of fear, but like especially for spiders. Because like they are sort of everywhere. Like you will run into one. And so it is a useful thing to like—you don't need to like them, like you don't need to—there are plenty of animals that I like—I'm still kind of like grossed out by slugs. I think slugs are super cool. When I was kid, I was terrified of them. They’re like really cool, but like they still kind of gross me out. But like, that fear, that grossness that's an internal thing. That isn't a thing that the animal's doing to me. That slug is just existing, right?

Sebastian: And so, just like we—when someone has a fear of dogs because they were attacked by a dog as a child, we wouldn't consider it fair or reasonable for that person to attack every dog that they see near them. They might avoid dogs. They might say, "I don't want to spend time with dogs. It's great that you like dogs, but I'm not going to." But, like they—we acknowledge that that's like a fear that they have that we can, you know, accommodate. Like I wouldn't bring a dog to that person. But that is not a thing that the animal—that dogs in general are guilty of. 

Sebastian: I would ask people like—even if you're afraid of spiders, I'm not asking you to like them. I'm just asking you to treat them with the same sort of respect that you would any wild animal that that you like, that another person is afraid of. You don't need to love spiders. You don't need to go and tell everyone to love spiders. I would be so happy if you did that. If you could get to like a neutral place with spiders where you're like, "Yeah, I don't want to hang around them, but like there's some things about them that are cool." That is like a win—beyond a win for me. Because I think that's treating them like an animal instead of a monster. And that's a really important thing for me.

Matthew: Mhm. 

Rachel: Yeah. And I think there's some strong ethics behind that. And one of the things that I do—especially having come to Xerces—now working with invertebrates, especially, you know, insects—I think something that helps me is to answer the why for people. 

Rachel: So like, okay, you might not like them. You might be scared of them. But they're important. And answering that “Why?” I think can help change people's perspective of like, "Okay, I really don't like, you know, spiders. But they play this role that's actually really cool and actually helpful in another way, like eating pests or other insects I don't like." 

Sebastian: Right. Yeah. So that's the cool thing about spiders. 

Rachel: So yeah. So why are they important? Like, why do we care about them?

Sebastian: They kind of do it all in some ways, because they sit at this really cool place. For animals roughly their size and smaller, they are these incredible predators, right? So for insects, for example, that are like—that would otherwise, you know, eat the leaves off of plants, that would damage crops, that would like get into stuff—spiders are great at controlling them because they just wanna eat things roughly their size or smaller. And they're very, very good at being predators. And they're everywhere. And they've adapted to all these different environments. Wherever they are, they're like controlling these populations so that they don't get out of control.

Sebastian:  But at the same time, for animals bigger than spiders, spiders are like this delicious, protein-filled snack. Because, as I mentioned before, if you remember, spiders don't have great defenses. Their abdomens are just like these like squishy little balls of like protein and fat, and just like yummy nutrients. And so if you're a bird, for example, you might eat seeds as an adult, ‘cause you've developed this nice strong beak that can crack seeds, and that's great for an adult bird. 

Sebastian: I don't know if anyone here has kids. If you try feeding your like newborn adult food, it won't go well because they don't have the system yet to process that food. Same thing goes for baby birds. And so spiders, in many cases, can be up to like 20 to 30% of the diet of like songbirds, for example, when they are feeding their babies in like nesting season. Because it's just like—it's just this perfect little meal. Like, "It can't hurt me. I'm so—I'm like—I just grab it with my beak and it's dead. And it's so small. But it's like this perfect size to give to my babies, and it's so nutritious. It's like just this little package—highly dense package of food." And so for a lot of animals, they rely on spiders as part of their diet. 

Sebastian: And so, basically, most animals that you care about, except for like the really, really big ones, are depending on spiders in some way. If they are, you know—if you're caring about plants, those spiders are keeping bugs that might eat them under control. If you care about birds and like small mammals, like, you know, chipmunks and things—we kind of in our mind have them as like, "Oh, they're eating seeds and stuff." All of these animals that might be perceived as mostly like seed eaters, are usually pretty omnivorous, where they will—you know, they like seeds. But if you give them a bug, they'll be like, "Oh, yeah, that's delicious," and they'll just go in on it. They're kind of opportunistic in that way. And spiders are fully on the menu for these animals, and again especially for birds.

Sebastian: Even things like tarantulas. There's some great footage of just like toucans just like grabbing a tarantula, and just like chucking it back. ‘Cause it's like, yeah, toucans are eating fruit all the time, right? But you need protein, too. Grab that— grab the tarantula. That's a nice little protein—you know, protein bar for ‘em.

Sebastian: And so every—almost all ecosystems where they live, they are doing these really important jobs for other animals. And I'll say, particularly for humans, if you don't like flies or mosquitoes kind of roaming around your property, there's two ways to address that. And that is one: get rid of the things that are bringing the flies and mosquitoes to your property. So like standing water, or like rotting food. Or two: have animals that will eat those for you. 

Sebastian: And web-building spiders, in particular, are—they're basically just putting out big nets. And they're just like everyday, "I'm going fishing for some flies. I'm going fishing for some mosquitoes, and I'm just gonna take all that I can get." And so they—if you see a big spider web like in your yard or something, that is mosquitoes and flies that are not getting to you because they're going to that spider.

Matthew: Yeah. Now, that's really cool. And talking about webs, I immediately started thinking like maybe you could encase your patio in spider webs. And it made me think—I actually lived in Kenya for a couple of years, where I would encounter these really big orb-weaving spiders. We called them—I think we called them—I don't know what they're officially called—but we called them the golden orb spider, because the webs they made were kind of yellowish.

Sebastian: That's probably Trichonephila. So the golden silk orb weavers are in the genus or family Trichonephila. 

Matthew: Yeah. There was one of these webs just in the angle between the house and the kind of deck. And you could just watch it. And it was pretty remarkable. 

Sebastian: Yeah. 

Matthew: Yeah, I mean, you were talking about encouraging people to at least be neutral and accepting of them. And regular listeners will know that on Bug Banter, we love to talk about how these animals—you know, the problems they face, the good things that we can do to help them. So, I mean in the same way that butterflies, birds, freshwater mussels, big cats, etcetera— they're facing threats. I'm sure there must be spiders in decline, as well? And the converse of that is, are there things that people can be doing to actively help them and not just accept them?

Sebastian: Yes, yes.

Matthew: You know, in the same way that we plant pollinator gardens. You know, can you create a spider garden?

Sebastian: I would like to one day, and you can. So, the short answer to both of those questions is, "Yes." The thing about— there are a lot of spiders in the world, and unfortunately, it's like twofold, because there are spiders that we definitely know are struggling. There are a few spiders in the United States that are actually on an endangered species list. There's like one or two species that we know—I think one is in Hawaii, and there's another one in, I believe, in the Appalachians. It's in the kind of group of spiders that are like tarantula-like spiders or the Mygalomorphs. They kind of look like tarantulas. What's what we call them that.

Sebastian: But it's a little spider that makes these webs in the like moss at the base of a very specific type of fir tree at the peaks of these mountains in a range in Appalachia. And it is critically endangered because of habitat loss. Because these trees can only exist at a certain climate, like this cool elevation, where there's a lot of moisture. And because of, you know, the climate crisis where temperatures have been rising, that range on the mountain has been—like the bottom low, has been creeping up, up, and up. And in some places those trees have just been taken down. 

Sebastian: And so they only exist on like one or two mountaintops now. But that is—and that's like an extreme example, because it's actually one where we know the numbers and the details and the threats. The sad thing about many spiders is that for all the reasons that I mentioned, there are fewer resources and people working to conserve them than there are even, say, the pollinators that we often talk about here at Xerces or, you know, the big cats, or the pandas out in the broader conservation conversation.

Sebastian: And so there are a lot of cases where I can say, like, there are serious problems. But you won't find that many of these spiders on endangered species lists. Because to get on those lists requires years of research and a lot of money to, you know, "Okay. Let's fully assess where this species is. Let's figure out all its threats. Let's get numbers on all the populations. Let's see what we could do to help." And those numbers aren't really there for a lot of spiders. 

Sebastian: But I can talk about general threats. One is—just like with any other bug—pesticide use. So pesticides that are targeted at, you know, termites, ants, whatever, caterpillars. They'll also kill spiders, as well—either directly or indirectly. And so any sort of pesticide spray that stays in the environment will mess up these animals. And just like with insects, bugs in general—arachnids, spiders, all these various things that I that I generally call bugs—have been declining, just in numbers of them. And I have like personal observations of that. But, like I said, the actual like detailed research on spiders is lacking in many cases.

Sebastian: The same threats that are hitting our pollinators are hitting spiders, as well. Because they're part of the same ecosystem. They're hitting the same pesticides. If you get rid of their habitat, they're gone. If you get rid of their food sources, the bugs that they eat, right? They don't have enough to survive. One particular one that I've—personally has like made me very sad, is there's like this trend in a lot of like landscaping, where they'll like put in seasonal plants and then just like tear them all out at winter. And then just like put more in. And the last time that I saw an Argiope spider, which are these—similar to the Trichonephilas. They're especially in the North, Northern U.S. They're some of our largest orb weavers.

Sebastian: They're like black, white, and yellow, beautiful giant females that make big webs. I saw one. It was in like October. And I saw it on a building next to mine, when was living in Pittsburgh. And I hadn't seen one in years, and I was like, "Wow! It's big female. Oh, she's gonna like—she'll overwinter here, and then in the spring I'll like get to see her like children. And it'll be great." And like a week later the—it was getting cooler, so she had taken down her web, and like hidden nearby, in like a bush. And all of that vegetation had been stripped out.

Sebastian: And so the spiders that like will come in and like come in during the season, get torn out. And like I haven't seen that species—I've seen it in other places, but like where I live, I haven't seen them since. And I like—I really—I feel bad for not like taking her in and like having—like moving her somewhere else that she could like survive. But like that is something that's happening, along, again, with pesticides sprays.

Sebastian: The other big issue, that is kind of on the other side, of like people who are actually interested in spiders, is poaching for the pet trade. So this is particularly for tarantulas and tarantula-like spiders, where they have these really long lifespans, where it takes them many, many years to get to adulthood, to breed. And most of them don't survive to that age. But they're pretty stationary when they're adults. 

Sebastian: And so it's this like sadly perfect combination of like—people want pet tarantulas. They're more and more popular now. Like, if you go on YouTube and you look up pet tarantulas, you'll find tons of people whose like—their entire, you know, job is to talk about pet tarantulas. And so a lot of people want more pet tarantulas and different ones. And like when they get them, a lot of times, they want a big tarantula. They don't want a baby tarantula, because when they're babies they're super tiny. 

Sebastian: And so there's a trade—there's like a demand for new species and adults. Which means there's unfortunately, in many cases, unregulated poaching, of people who just go out to the wild, in areas where they are like undescribed species, often in like the Global South, and collect these spiders and ship them off to Europe and America, to be sold as pets. And there's like a whole fuel of people who are like, "Oh, I want the new one. I want the new one. I want the new one."

Sebastian: And it's terrible for these animals. Because like when you see an adult spider that is like—maybe one or two of its siblings are also alive at that age and have made it to that size to reproduce. And so you take that out of the ecosystem, and you lose a huge chunk of future generations, because like that reproductive individual is gone. And so there are a lot—that's a big issue like around the world.

Sebastian: There is an answer to it. But you can look at—if we go to Mexico, because they're—they actually have an entire group of tarantulas, the Brachypelma tarantulas, which are the—you probably used to see them a lot in movies and then stopped. They are black with orange and black legs. And so if you watch like Home Alone or something, like that's the tarantula in there. And it used to be a really common one, because it used to be exported and taken from the wild. And they were declared endangered throughout Mexico.

Sebastian: And the Mexican government was like, "These spiders have cultural importance because they are like a Mexican genus of spiders." And so what they do now is, they actually have a captive breeding program where they will breed these spiders in captivity. And half of the babies they sell, to export to fund the program. And the other half, they released to the wild. So people who want these can get ethically sourced ones, and the wild populations keep getting new ones added to them. And so you're not hurting them. 

Sebastian: As far as I know, that's the only country that has like a program like that. But it's something that I wish I would see elsewhere in the world. And it is sort of a model that we can look to for conservation of these types of spiders.

Sebastian: In general, if you want to help spiders, it's pretty easy. You can do a lot of the same things that you do for other bugs. Creating habitat—you know, your pollinator gardens will support a nice healthy population of spiders. Avoiding pesticide use will keep these animals that are around you healthy and surviving. 

Sebastian: And if you are interested in a pet spider—which, congratulations, they could be very cool and fun pets—make sure that you get a captive-bred spider. So a spider that was born in captivity from parents that were also in captivity. Because those spiders—one: they just make better pets than the wild-caught ones, because they're more used to being in captivity, and they also don't have to deal with like diseases and stuff that they might have in the wild. But two: that means that you're not hurting the wild populations and you can enjoy your spider. And the spider is not a concern for the ones that are also existing out there in nature.

Matthew: Yeah, no, it's interesting. I mean, we have our "leave the leaves" and "save the stems" campaigns that are, certainly—"save the stems" is related to bee nesting sites and "leave the leaves," we tie to all sorts of things, including, fireflies, and so on. I'm like, "Oh yeah." This is like—we need to ramp up the spider information that we have associated with that, because so much of what we talk about with those is avoiding that seasonal cleanout that you described in Philadelphia, and the loss of that beautiful Argiope.

Sebastian: Yes. And those same overwintering sites are also used by spiders. So spiders that do overwinter, they'll find crevices, but a lot of them will find vegetation and like get down in there. Especially a lot of the smaller ones. There are a lot of spiders that like live in leaf litter and like in tiny little spaces that are quite small. And so that is their entire home. And in addition to the ones that are—normally live elsewhere, but will go seek out those spaces when trying to find a place to survive the winter where we live in northern parts of North America. They need that warmth.

Rachel: Thank you, Sebastian. So we are up to our last and favorite question. What inspired you to study spiders and eventually come and work at Xerces and work with invertebrates?

Sebastian: Yeah, so this is one where I feel like a lot of people ask me like, "Oh, did you always love spiders?" And the answer is like... not really. I grew up not being very afraid of them. But, as I mentioned earlier, I was super scared of slugs, so it's not like invertebrates in general were my jam. I used to really like birds. I mean, I still like birds. They're just like less cool now, comparatively. I didn't get super into spiders until I actually started my PhD or I was looking to find a place to do my PhD, where I was interviewing at a bunch of different labs. And like some of them were spider labs, and I was like, "Oh, this is cool."
And then I was talking to a professor, and they showed me, for the first time, a video of a paradise jumping spider dancing.

Sebastian: And there was like very little like prep for us. Like, "Oh, here's just like a thing that I've been working on." Like I don't—and it sort of blew my mind because I had seen jumping spiders before, I guess, but like they're very small. So I just like, sort of—they were just like a little speck hopping around. I like hadn't like thought or paid much attention to them. And then I saw one like up close in this video—this being a macro video so it was really up-close and you could see the colors and you could see the dance. And I stood up, and I was like, "What is this? I need to know more about it." And I ended up studying them for my PhD. 

Sebastian: And as I started learning about jumping spiders, it sort of like got the ball rolling. So I was like, "Okay, I should know—I should look—I'm gonna study jumping spiders. I should learn about jumping spiders." Then I'm like, well, "I should learn about like generally what a spider is," and then I'm like discovering like, "Oh, wait!" There's a spider that does this. And like there's this other one that like can like rocket itself with its web at like super high speeds. And then this other one that lives underwater. And then this other one that lives on Mount Everest. And this one that does this. And this other one that like builds these like secret sand castle things in the desert. Like every time I would find a new one, it would just be another, "What!?"

Sebastian: And that sort of feeling of like discovery was really exciting. Because when I was a kid I would—I loved watching nature documentaries. They were like my whole jam. But the problem was that I—like the tone of the ones that I watched was largely this idea of like, "Out there somewhere far away, that we've had to spend a lot of money and effort to go to, there's like the wilderness. And that's where the real animals and nature are." And then it's like, "It's such a big deal that we've gotten here." And like, "Whoa! It's like a rhino, and it's all the way over there. And you'll never see it or anything that's cool unless you watch this show."

Sebastian: And there's this energy of like—like nature was like not accessible. And like it was like everything was kind of like found already. Because it's like you—after you watch enough shows about elephants, you're kind of like, "I have a decent grasp of what an elephant is doing. And I'll learn a few new things, but like—." And then I was like, "Oh, wait! Like everywhere I'm going I'm seeing a new spider, and like it's doing something different."

Sebastian: And that like feeling of discovery was really exciting. And then it sort of spun out from spiders to other bugs, and just like kind of kept going. And my whole jam for why—even while I was in my PhD—like my favorite thing was getting other people excited and having that sense of discovery happen for them too. And so when I got the chance to work at Xerces, in part of a communication role, where like part of my job is to like get people to learn cool things about bugs, it was a pretty natural fit.

Rachel: I love that you brought up the accessibility component of that. There was one of our Ambassadors—our outreach volunteers—who had mentioned she worked with youth. And a lot of them talked about like, "Oh, we don't have nature here," and they were like in a city park. And she's like, "But there is nature here." And they're like, "Yeah, but we're—you have to go to a national park to find nature. Like this isn't real nature."

Rachel: So there's that disconnect. And that's what I love about invertebrates, especially—like spiders, insects, like the accessibility of it. I mean, even if you don't have a nature park nearby, you probably have like a spider web outside your door or your apartment building somewhere. Like you can find nature in these places and letting people know like, "That's real nature."

Sebastian: Yeah. I grew up in New York City—same neighborhood as Spiderman, actually—Forest Hills, Queens, which is actually, for New York City, pretty like—there's like flowers and residential stuff. But like, I could go to, you know, like Manhattan, and like, give me a few minutes, and I'll find you a spider.

Sebastian: Species diversity might be a little low, if I'm not like by a park. But I could just like go to a park in Manhattan and find some jumping spiders. They are everywhere. These animals have adapted to basically every environment. And a lot of human-made environments are like pretty good for certain spiders. And the cool thing is that a lot of them, like even if there's not that many different species, in some places you can always find some. And they're doing interesting behaviors, especially if you find a jumping spider, which you will in any sort of human environment. They like walls—like certain species in particular, really like walls and structures, and like they like all the flies that we bring in with our trash, you know.

Matthew: Yeah, which brings us right back to Rachel's opening comment about her zebra spider that traveled in the car with her, you know.

Sebastian: So, there was a thing that would happen, when I was doing field work looking for paradise jumping spiders. It's that, guaranteed there was—every time we'd go, we'd find at least one spider in the car. There'd be one spider in our database that would have like, "Location: like, Toyota Highlander. Like we don't know when it jumped on, but like it's a paradise jumping spider. It's like walking around the roof of the car. Did it jump on with us? I don't know." But like it just—it happens, you know? They will, especially like in a car where there's like all these little nooks and crannies, like, "Oh, I'm just gonna rest here and like, I guess I'm going for a ride."

Rachel: Well, thank you so much. I have learned so much about spiders! I feel like my mind is—it's like a sponge right now. And now I just wanna go share all the information I learned with other people. So thank you for sharing everything with us and being here with us today. 

Sebastian: Absolutely it was a ton of fun. Thank you for listening while I ranted about my favorite animals.

Rachel: Ranting welcome! Thanks Sebastian.

Rachel: To learn more about spiders and have the chance to ask Sebastian questions live, join us on Halloween, Thursday, October 31, 2024 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time for a special Halloween webinar. For more information, go to our website at xerces.org/events.

Matthew: Bug Banter is brought to you by the Xerces Society, a donor-supported nonprofit that is working to protect insects and other invertebrates—the life that sustains us. 

Matthew: If you’re already a donor, thank you so much. If you want to support our work go to xerces.org/donate. For information about this podcast and show notes go to xerces.org/bugbanter.