The Myth of Spider Bites

It's that time of year…witches, skeletons, ghosts and creepy-crawly spiders. Find a spooky Halloween display and you'll find big, black, menacing spiders striking terror in many people, and unease in most.

There's not much agreement about where spider phobias come from. One theory says it's encoded in our genes from a time when spiders were thought to spread the plague as well as other illnesses and epidemics. These fears are misplaced in both cases. Spiders don't spread disease and their bites rarely cause death.

Of the 3,500 spider species in the United States, the black widow and brown recluse are the most venomous to humans. Venomous, yes, but rarely fatal. And rarely if ever found in New Hampshire. They are natives of much warmer places. As for brown recluse spiders, none have been confirmed in New Hampshire although many an ugly staph infection gets blamed on a spider bite.

Once again, spiders get a bum rap. Instead, they should get a lot of credit for helping to keep insect populations in balance. One spider consumes about 2,000 insects a year. Just think of all the creepy-crawly ticks and cockroaches they dispatch. Not to mention stinging wasps and mosquitoes.

Of course, on the Halloween creepy-scary side, spiders do spin their webs to lure insects to a pretty gruesome doom, paralyzing them before sucking out their body fluids. And some females do eat their mates.

Script by Francie Von Mertens