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
Spiders tend to embody a lot of what we’re wired to see as “unnatural.” They look almost alien, night and day compared to the endearing features of other animals.
Not only do they have fangs, but they have eight eyes and eight legs, which is alarming, on it’s own – and paradoxically, you generally can’t even see their eyes. Not being able to see a creature’s face, when you should, can be troubling. Having eight legs sets them apart from the six legged insects we’re more used to.
There’s also the way they move. The scuttling motion can be startling. Some of them *jump.* They also use webbing, and with that they can basically be anywhere in the air. You can walk into their webs by accident. A spider can lower itself on a string down onto your head, etc.
To be clear, I’m not even arachnophobic. I love spiders. But I’ve thought a lot about why this fear might be so widespread.
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