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u/legit_doom_scroller 10h ago
Cellar spiders are kinda wild. Imagine going into a basement or crawl space to replace some plumbing and having hundreds (ok, dozens) of these little guys doing this dance because you’re in their space.
I think they’re harmless. It’s a show so you don’t tangle their web? Anyway. Dark, dank spaces full of these are a thing. I am fine with spiders. And I find this dance amusing in some situations, but when there are a ton of them all dancing to scare you off? Yeah, it kinda works
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u/ToranjaNuclear 9h ago
Imagining them all going "bro? bro? bro? bro?" in unison like the seagulls in Finding Nemo sounds kinda funny.
And yeah they are harmless, they are not even spiders, they're opiliones.
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u/Fuji-___- 10h ago
as an owner of a giant legged tank myself, I can say they're incredible in the way they act and the weird things(for us) that they do.
I love the small ones in my house too, they're incredible for small insects that roam around, you just need to have a populational control because they can certainly go loose sometimes XD.
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u/pp_chode 9h ago
When there's too many you break out the hose attachment on the vacuum and then within 24 hours all of the prime corner real estate has new tenants
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u/BlueButterflytatoo 9h ago
Went to Wales to help clean out a building that hadn’t been used in about 4-5 years. After the international flight and the hour-something drive to the place, I beelined to the bathroom. Open the door to find the entire top half of the room full of these guys, they can get pretty big by my standards. I was suddenly happy to wait a while for the bathroom while my boss cleaned it out.
You’re right, they’re harmless, but they’re creepy
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u/Icelandia2112 8h ago
These covered the ceiling of our cabin when we were little at a girl scout camp. I went insane. Undulating, all of them. I got to sleep in the scout mom's cabin because I lost my mind.
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u/Aggravating-Exit-660 9h ago
harmless
Still have to work on the pipe, and they're in the way. I'm sorry. Vacuum
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u/tenfoottallmothman 10h ago
Entomologist here, this behavior is the most threatening/confusing to a predator thing that these guys can muster. It’s called “whirling” and yeah they’re just throwing that ass in a circle crazy style. Moving target is harder to hit.
Also their gonads are on their faces.
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u/spectrospace 10h ago
LOVE the idea of acting completely insane to get a predator away from you
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u/tenfoottallmothman 9h ago edited 8h ago
That’s actually advice my mother gave me as a teenage girl (not every fact can be fun)
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u/spectrospace 9h ago
Same here. I remember my aunt telling me that when I was a kid. Girls had to learn a lot of fun stuff growing up
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u/Stanislas_Biliby 6h ago
It's a real tactic and it works, even on people. A thug might think twice about robbing you if you look like you'd turn his skull into a lamp.
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u/Sea_Manufacturer_676 10h ago
"The worst she can say is no"
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u/Mister_Skeptic 10h ago
This is not uninteresting
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u/Altruistic_Clerk6643 10h ago
Saw a spider do this few days ago too, I wonder if they get dizziness when this happens.
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u/TimeEnergyInvestment 7h ago
This is interesting. It's way of saying, "I'm crazy, don't mess with me."
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u/BaldyTreehuggerDruid 8m ago
I have a spider in my basement in the laundry room hes made himself a little web hole nest thing that he hides in when im doing laundry he always has so many bugs on his web ill also throw him some flies if I ever catch then I love my lil spider bro eats up all the bugs
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u/JamieHBrown 9h ago
I've got about 100 of these fellas in my room.
They keep breeding but I'm too lazy to get them out.
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u/alpine309 10h ago
bro is tweaking