Giant Spiders (question)

[loomer]

A cat sized spider would result in a significant increase in deaths amongst humans.

Imagine one morning, you wake up. In the window is a giant fucking spider.

You are an arachnophobe, and there is a spider bigger than your head in the room.

So while the deaths will not be from bites or poison, they will be there.

[Superman]

A cat-sized spider would presumably pose as much threat to humans as a cat-sized cat. Maybe a snake if it retained its human-hurting venom.

Yeah, I've got to disagree here too. Spiders have poor vision, aren't very agile, have an exoskeleton that isn't particularly effective when it comes to sturdiness (they break rather easily), and tend to prey upon animals that are smaller than they are.

Why would they result in an increase in deaths amongst humans?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Seriously, why would these things kill more people than those Japanese Giant Wasps?

[Superman]

Seriously, why would these things kill more people than those Japanese Giant Wasps?

Yeah, no fucking way. Those are aggressive as hell and can fly. When spiders feel threatened, they run. Wasps attack.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Giant Spiders[tm] would hardly be able to move themselves about, most likely. The largest land anthropod is the coconut crab. Comparing the sizes of these and even the largest examples of birdeaters, the crabs are built much heavier to handle the greatly increased mass. For a Giant Spider[tm] to move about easily, it'd probably end up bearing a strong resemblance to a coconut crab rather than a spider.


Still, it'd be scary as fuck to see one of those standing outside your bedroom.

[Darth Wong]

A cat sized spider would result in a significant increase in deaths amongst humans.

Imagine one morning, you wake up. In the window is a giant fucking spider.

You are an arachnophobe, and there is a spider bigger than your head in the room.

So while the deaths will not be from bites or poison, they will be there.

Such large spiders will not be able to enter your home as easily as the small ones can. Unless you leave doors and windows wide open, this scenario should not occur.

[Omeganian]

A cat sized spider would result in a significant increase in deaths amongst humans.

Imagine one morning, you wake up. In the window is a giant fucking spider.

You are an arachnophobe, and there is a spider bigger than your head in the room.

So while the deaths will not be from bites or poison, they will be there.

The Adventure of the Deptford Horror?

[Cykeisme]

If I remember correctly, I recall reading that larger spiders tend to have less potent venoms (either in terms of the mechanism by which they debilitate, and/or the concentration of the venom).

Is this because larger spiders have less evolutionary pressure to develop concentrated poisons, since they can rely on their strength and weight to pin down their prey?

Or is this some direct effect of scaling issues?
If it is scaling, I'm not sure I see why immediately.

Just curious about this.

..and they're pretty damn fragile. One good fall from a few feet can split them open.

Ouch, really?
I imagine they've simply developed to be larger than other spiders without having advanced adaptations to compenstate for their bigger scale, but I didn't know that they were that fragile.
This is an excellent example of the whole "size does matter" fact!

[Cykeisme]

Ghetto edit:
Relative to their volume, are tarantula exoskeletons any thicker than those of other spiders? Or is it about the same?

[Akhlut]

Yeah, I've got to disagree here too. Spiders have poor vision, aren't very agile, have an exoskeleton that isn't particularly effective when it comes to sturdiness (they break rather easily), and tend to prey upon animals that are smaller than they are.

Actually, some spiders have excellent vision. Jumping spiders have around eight eyes arranged in such a fashion as to give them stereoscopic vision with a great deal of depth perception and movement detection, and probably a great deal of resolution. Needless to say, they are also extremely agile, what with the jumping and all.

Further, the exoskeleton of a spider that large would probably evolve some sort of mechanism to prevent such fragility (probably an increase in connective tissue and/or hardened chitin, much like its relatives the horseshoe crabs and emperor scorpions).

Also, some spiders will prey on animals as large or larger then they are.

[Akhlut]

Seriously, why would these things kill more people than those Japanese Giant Wasps?

Yeah, no fucking way. Those are aggressive as hell and can fly. When spiders feel threatened, they run. Wasps attack.

Not Sydney funnel-web spiders. they attack when they are disturbed.

Also, I forgot to mention about the exoskeleton thing: most pet tarantulas are desert dwelling species that live on the ground, usually. Arboreal species tend to be able to survive a fall a bit better and tend to be much faster, as well.