SPIDERS are one of Americas most amazing natural resources! Here are some amazing BUT TRUE facts about the amazing world of spiders!

  • Did you know that those spiders with hair on them are mammals, and thus produce delicious (and unusually cold) milk. Spiders produce milk using the same glands that they produce silk threads with.
  • Did you know that a single strand of spider web has more potential energy than the bomb dropped on Nagasaki? But because spiders do not naturally exist in areas of high fusion, there is little danger to the average person.
  • Did you know that a spider egg contains as much DNA as four humans combined? And that's just one of the unborn spiders, the entire egg sac outnumbers the population of India
  • Did you know that spiders cannot physically die of natural causes? If kept safe, a spider can continue to live and grow larger for a theoretically unlimited amount of time. In fact, in China there exists a collection of 'holy' spiders, hatched some 2,800 years ago during the height of the Mang-Tsun dynasty.
  • A spider's carapace, if sufficiently scaled, could adequately shield a nuclear blast
  • The most valuable spider is the Kenyan Applecrosser. These elegant spiders actually grow beautiful, near-flawless emeralds on their abdomens.
  • There's actually an extremely rare spider in Eastern Africa, called the Snow Spider. Its body is completely white, but it spins a completely black web
  • Spiders can sustain hundreds of atmospheres of pressure, and can work flawlessly in a vacuum. Scientists have discovered spiders working at both the bottom of the sea and in the ultra-thin atmosphere thirty miles above the Earth.
  • That's easy - while spiders are usually known for their webs, they can also weave wind-sailing "parachutes" capable of taking them high above the world below. Furthermore, the so-called WindCurrent Spiders have actually evolved to live without a verticle base - they have lived for hundreds of millenia within the Earths ionosphere. The WindCurrent Spider is cannabilistic, it also retrieves many of its nutrients from sunlight, via a process not unsimilar to photosynthesis.
  • The largest spider ever observed by scientists was over 8 feet long and weighed in at 530 pounds. It was actually immobile though, it's legs had been broken long ago by merely carrying its own weight
  • The Orange Magma Spider can resist heat up to 5,300 degrees F. Ironically, they exist only at the southernmost tip of the South Pole's largest glacier.
  • The average human autopsy procedure in Chicago, IL will reveal roughly 250 small spiders living at points throughout the endocrine and circulatory systems. In New York, NY the average is upwards of 800.
  • In conventional psychology the most dangerous concept in dream understanding is the spider - it represents to the human subconscious the eleven stages of grieving (eight legs, torso, two antannae).
  • Given sufficient motivation, the Harjack Spider can produce enough silk to suffocate the average human infant in a matter of minutes.
  • Harvard Neurologists have discovered that an average spider's brain possesses a greater mental capacity than the world's most brilliant scientists. If their brains didn't lack a cognitive lobe, they'd be more intelligent than Einstein
  • The Shoecase Spider of the Australian Southwest creates and inhabits tiny skyscrapers, made of wooden sticks held together by heavy silk threads. These constructions have been known to be up to fifty feet high in unpopulated areas.
  • Did you know that spiders are almost all homosexual? Their species evolved to be that way as a form of population control. That's why there are so many male spiders and so few female. And that's also why the queen kills the male after mating with it, because she views him as a genetic anomaly
  • Did you know that millipedes were eventually just strings of dozens of spiders? Evolution changed them into the single animals we know today.
  • Did you know that one of the most amazing spiders is the enourmous Seawheel Spider? They evolved in the eighteen hundreds to perfectly emulate the spiked captains wheels on British sailing frigates.
  • The United States government spends over four percent of its GDP on methods to eliminate spiders - that's more than the war on terror, the war on drugs and the national parks program combined!
  • The cursive 'X' commonly used to represent a variable in basic algebra comes from the spider - it harkens back to ancient Greece, when mathamaticians would use dried spider husks to symbolize their complex equations.
  • The word "Spider" comes from an acronym. Scientists investigating spiders in the 17th century would abbreviate "Sample -- Please Investigate Data; Exoskeleton Regular" on their insect containers.
  • Not only is owning large spiders legal, in some places it's mandatory! In the Sandwhich Islands British zoologists issue spider kits to natives when they reach the age of sixteen. The spiders are necessary because they ward off a host of local bacterium that would otherwise be dangerous to humans. Anyone found to be without their spider can face stiff fines or jail time.
  • In 2001 the space shuttle Atlantis (STS-98) carried a scientific package into orbit which included over 300 spiders. It was found that under microgravity conditions spiders created complex three dimensional silk tunnel networks rather than their traditional flat webs.
  • insert description hereThe insect kingdom has come up with many unique methods for avoiding predators - from beetles disguised as sticks to cicadas living underground for seventeen years, the myriad of evolved adaptations is endless. Perhaps most startling is the so-called Chronospider. In an effort to avoid becoming lunch, the chronospider actually manages to exist outside time itself. A praying mantis or bird intending to eat the spider must therefore do so in every time period simultaneously.
  • insert description hereSpiders are famous for spinning "silk" webs... when, in fact, less than .2% of our eight legged friends do so! Depending on species, a spiders "spinerettes" can generate all sorts of fantastic materials. The ironically named Copperhead Spider actually spins webs made of solid steel. Some wonder if these inseccts could be used to repair airplanes or spacecraft - while in flight!
  • insert description hereDeep blue sea? Hardly - ever noticed that the color of the ocean varies significantly from place to place. It can be dark gray one moment and light blue the next. This is entirely due to the release of "spider blooms" at undersea locations. These blooms, which may release up to ten to the tenth power baby spiders a piece, send the insects rushing to the surface in order to take their first breath. Sadly, less than 5% of a spider litter survives the trip up from the murky depths.
  • insert description hereSpiders are known for preserving their prey alive in silky coccoons in order to enjoy a "fresh meal". The Viedant Spider takes this one step further - when it comes across a dead insect, it uses an unusual form of venom to inject new life into the unappetizing corpse. Scientists are studying the spider as a potential treatment for several forms of deadly cancer.
  • insert description hereThe Bajillion Spider of South Africa is one of nature's most bizarre spiders. Each single spider is actually recursively composed of thousands of tiny spiders that together form a group consciousness and work together as one collective.
  • EVENinsert description hereER!! Most household spiders come from the fact that most people don't properly wash their new clothing after purchase. 90% of clothing purchased at retail stores contain spider eggs laid during shipment.
  • EVENinsert description hereER!! The first English language poem ever written was about spyders! Sir Thomas Alderidge wrote the following: Sylent, pryttie inseyct / deth escayps raintrodden.
  • EVENinsert description hereER!! In the classic fairy tale, the "spider who sat down beside her" does not represent an actual spider at all, but is rather an allegory for the Soviet stranglehold over western Europe. At the same time, the term "Iron Curtain" was coined by Churchill not as a reference to the political situation but instead as an imaginative (if bleak) description of a wave of North Sea Fancy Spider's washing up near his beachfront home.
  • EVENinsert description hereER!! The Black Widow spider's name derives from its penchant for killing husbands of mix-race marriages; to this day, they remain the only type of spiders ever specifically demonished for racism by both the United States Congress and the British House of Lords.

    For more information about spiders, please send a self-addressed envelope to:

    Federal Department of Spiders
    c/o Dr. Clyde Burroughs
    1110 Ashland Dr.
    Washington DC, 20861