This spider scientist wants us to appreciate the world's 8-legged wonders

Quirks and Quarks18:13This biologist wants to change your mind about scary spiders

Behavioural ecologist James O'Hanlon wants the world to know more about his favourite animal. After all, there are over 50,000 different species, some that can fly through the air, some play songs, solve puzzles, and even scuba dive. They're found in every continent except for Antarctica, and have been around since millions of years before dinosaurs roamed the earth. 

Oh, and they're also the number one most feared animal on the planet: the spider.

O'Hanlon is on a mission to give spiders an image makeover, so that people can celebrate and appreciate them for the incredible creatures they are.

He spoke with Quirks & Quarks host Bob McDonald about his new book, Eight Legged Wonders: The Surprising Lives of Spiders. Here is part of their conversation.

You've studied a lot of creatures in your career. What is it about spiders in particular that fascinates you?

I've studied everything from ants and wasps and praying mantises and crickets all the way to spiders. And of all the ones that I've studied, spiders stood out in terms of how different the perception of them was in the public versus the perception of them among spider experts.

Spider experts talk about spiders as if they're their beloved children and how fascinating and wonderful they are. But around the dinner table, it's yuck, creepy crawly, get them away from me.

What is it about spiders that you think generates that ick factor in people?

That's actually a huge question in psychology in general. When psychologists study fears and phobias, for some strange reason, fear of spiders comes out as No. 1 of any type of fear on the planet.

More than fear of heights, fear of flying, fear of snakes, fear of dogs, spiders is the No. 1 fear that people experience. And it's a bit of a head scratcher because it doesn't really make any sense. There's no clear answers as to why we have that sort of fear. 

Your book subtitle is The Surprising Life of Spiders. What sorts of surprises are you talking about?

We're talking everything, from things like your vegetarian spiders to the fact that there are lactating spiders to the fact that spiders have been into space and back on five different space missions, the fact that spiders can fly and can cross oceans on little silken kites.

The same sort of technology that propels maglev trains was being used by spiders to launch into the air — they are electromagnetic rockets. I feel like every time you hear a new spider discovery, it's just as mind boggling as the last one you heard. They're an incredible group.

You also mentioned how some spiders can solve puzzles.

Yeah. So there's one particular spider that's become famous for being the smartest spider that we know of, maybe even the smartest invertebrate that we know of, at least on land. It's called Portia. It's this tiny little furry jumping spider about the size of your little fingernail. We get them around the tropics, and they have to be very, very smart because they feed on other spiders. 

I guess because of this, they've evolved to have really, really clever problem-solving brains. 

So you can give them a maze. They don't just mindlessly wander into the maze and, you know, turn left and right, whatever it takes. They all stop at the top of the maze and look and think and plan ahead, and pick the route that they're going to take before they do it. 

And these are the sorts of problem-solving capabilities that we don't even ascribe to some young toddlers, things that humans have to learn. And yet these spiders seem to have it already built into their brains. 

What are some of the ecological benefits that spiders bring?

They're what we call generalist predators as we know they eat lots of stuff. And so there's actually been research now done into how these can be used as a type of natural pest control in crops.

You can have different types of spiders and they're wonderful natural pest control for all sorts of things — for the grubs that are crawling on the plants, for any flying insects going by, for any little beetles that are burrowing into the ground — and they don't come with any costs at all.

Spiders aren't going to lay eggs inside plant tissues or burrow into those plants and they're not going to pose any threat to people working in there.

Spider silk has long fascinated textile weavers for the the strength of it. And its lightness, its flexibility. But there's also interest in the biomedical field. How could it be useful in medicine?

Spider silk has been famous for its structural properties, but it also has this wonderful little property in that it's hypoallergenic. So for some reason it doesn't seem to provoke an immune response in people.

I mean, think about all the cobwebs you see around people's houses. Have you ever heard of anyone that's got an allergy to spider silk? It just doesn't seem to happen.

So people are starting to examine how we can actually use ... silk as a scaffolding for cell growth or even as some sort of structure for implants that go in. There's been studies looking at whether it can be used as a coating for silicon implants. So far only in rats, but who knows, one day in humans.

What about medical applications for spider venom?

As we know, spider venom is very, very good at killing things. So scientists and medical professionals have thought, what if we can get it to kill the right things? So can we get it to kill particular types of bacteria? Can we get it to kill particular types of viruses?

So there are tons of research going into how that can be used as different types of antibiotics or antivirals that are much more specific. 

There's even research going into whether spider venom can be used as a painkiller, which sounds a bit counterintuitive. You know, we think of venom as something that's supposed to hurt, to not heal. But if you think about it, the way spider venom works, it works by messing up how nerve cells work. And if we know that, can we get spider venom to mess up the right types of nerve signals?

They're not jumping into human trials just yet, but it seems to be very effective at turning off pain signals while keeping your muscle movement signals working completely fine.
 
As you point out in your book, spiders can do so much for us, but people still fear them. What's at stake if we don't get over that?

I just think we're in danger of just being wrong. We're just in danger of sort of mindlessly going throughout our days, perpetuating stereotypes and continuing to see spiders as scary things you don't want in our houses — instead of having our minds and eyes open to how utterly fascinating and and surprising they are.

I always feel, like, a sense of justice around it, that this is a wrong that needs to be righted.