Why are so many humans (myself included) afraid of spiders? Arachnophobia consistently lands in the top 10 most-common phobias. Why? Especially when there aren’t *that* many deadly species of them? Why spiders over other animals?
In: Biology
Survival of the fittest isn’t great with specificity.
Humans afraid of spiders would generally, and over long spans of time, have a higher survival rate and have more kids that survive. Not being afraid of spiders doesn’t come with many benefits to your survival. This gives evolution no real reason to discriminate one spider from another, and it’s easier for nature to create a generalized fear than a specific one.
Then you also have to remember the spiders have been evolving this whole time too. So yeah, maybe all you need to worry about today is a brown recluse or black widow. But maybe 40 million years ago there was a green recluse and yellow widow or something, and they moved on to brown and black because it makes them more camouflaged at night. So on and so forth.
As for why spiders as opposed to others? Spiders are one of the few in the first world you ever have to worry about coming into contact with on a daily basis. What’s the number, “there’s always a spider within 10 feet of you”? The nearest tiger is in the zoo, 30 miles away, in a pit, with 12 foot walls.
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