For as long as I can remember, I have been terrified of spiders. If I see one
creeping around in the corner of a room I jump out of my skin. Arachnophobia is
considered to be the most common phobia in the Western world, but I wanted to
know why that is, because out of 35,000 species of spiders, there's only about a
dozen that pose any threat to us. One theory is that our fear of spiders is
genetic, a study carried out at the Institute for human cognitive and brain
sciences in Germany. Try saying that fast several times. Took a bunch of six month
olds and showed them some pictures of nice stuff and some pictures of scary
stuff, like spiders and the study found that when these babies were shown
pictures of spiders, their pupils became significantly wider. The scientists who
carried out the study hypothesized that early man developed a fear of venomous
spiders, which became a fear of all spiders, to keep us away from getting
bitten and this fear was coded into our genes and passed down. Critics have
pointed out that our pupils getting wider doesn't necessarily show that
we're afraid, it actually just shows that we're really really focused, so this
study could suggest that we're born interested in spiders. However it is
proven that a fear of spiders does run in families. Some psychologists believe
that this could be down to an arachnophobic parent imprinting their fear onto
their children. Which makes a lot of sense to me, considering my mum is
absolutely terrified of spiders. There's also theory that fear of spiders could be
caused by what's called Spider Trauma, which is a traumatic event involving spiders
early on in life, which can even be suppressed, so you may not even remember
that you had that experience. Strangely a fear of spiders has been found to be
cultural. It's almost exclusive to people who are descended from Europeans. It's
possible that this because in the 10th century, Europeans thought that spiders
were the harbingers of the plague. Whereas in other cultures,
spiders are seen good luck or even eaten as delicacies.
Curiously, most arachnophobes don't list being afraid of bites as their main
reason for being cautious, the main thing that they're scared of is their erratic
movements and their freakishly long legs. Regardless of where the fear comes from,
there are actually spiders that we should probably be afraid of, because
they can kill us. And the one that has always terrified me the most is the
Black Widow. As a kid the Black Widow was presented to me as the most dangerous
spider in the world. Its bite is reported to be 15 times stronger than that of a
rattlesnake and if that isn't bad enough, the females cannibalize their mates
after sex. As you may have guessed, it's the lady black widow spiders that you
have to look out for. They're much bigger than the males and can grow to about 4
centimeters in diameter. They're usually black all over with a
bulbous abdomen and on the underside of the abdomen there is a distinctive red
hourglass symbol. In terms of habitat the Black Widow isn't picky, she will settle
for any temperate country and she likes to hide in dark spaces like sheds, or
garages. So they hide in your home and they eat their own and if that wasn't
scary enough, their bite is incredibly venomous. But I wanted to know why their
jaws needed to pack such a punch. Interestingly enough, the neurotoxins
found in the Black Widow, are also found in the common house spider, but the house
spider has a much more watered down version of these neurotoxins. They
think the reason that the Black Widow has developed such a strong venom, is so
it can take down larger prey. They have been known to eat small mammals and
reptiles. When prey gets caught in the black widows web, she quickly cocoons it,
before injecting it with the incredibly strong paralyzing venom. They then use a
second row of teeth behind the fangs to mash up their food, along with digestive
enzymes and then slurp up the food like some kind of meat smoothie. But I wanted
to know what happens to a person when they're bitten by a black widow spider.
It turns out that their venom is a bit of a cocktail, but the most damaging
element is called an alpha-latrotoxin toxin and latrotoxins effect the
presynaptic area of your neurons, which is the gap
between them, and it causes your neurons to dump out all of their
neurotransmitters at once. Your neurotransmitters tell your muscles how
to act and how to feel and with all this information going on at once, your body
just doesn't know what to do. This can cause nausea, profuse sweating, severe
pain in the abdomen, back muscle aches, hypertension and paralysis of the
diaphragm, making it difficult to breath and in some cases death. So I know what
you're thinking, with such a deadly spider on the loose, pretty much all over
the world, the death rate must be astronomical,
but actually no. The last recorded death from a black widow bite was in 2003 in
Spain and that's not because we have an anti-venom.
Apparently in most cases doctors don't even use it, they just treat the symptoms
and that's because the symptoms are usually very mild. The only people that
are really at risk are the very old and the very young, and in fact unless you're
a male spider the the black widow is not very aggressive, it will actually go out
of its way not to bite you. It will pretty much only bite you if you sit on
it, so don't do that. Researching this video made me feel
physically sick and even after finding out that black widows are basically
harmless, I'm still terrified of them, so in this case exposure therapy hasn't
worked. But if this video did help you conquer your fear of spiders, then tell
me in a comment below, and if you want to see more videos to make you feel queasy,
hit the subscribe button and until next time. don't p*ss off a black widow spider