I’d like to observe, that although funny and drawing a lot of attention, this thread is wrong.
Spiders ARE poisonous. Plenty, if nost the most of them, really. By default we simply do not consider them food, but they are eaten in some parts of our world, nevertheless.
And yes, spiders, ar least some of them are venomous.
And no, the pestcontrol website doesn’t count. It doesn’t cite any sources and pest control companies have a self interesst in exaggerating claims about the dangers of all kinds of bugs.
I can’t provide you a source that you’d probably accept on the spot, since plenty of these, including scientific ones use terms “venomous” and “poisonous” interchangeably. I can direct you to the entry in Wikipedia, that lists mere 15 edible species of spiders, instead of saying “pretty much each and everyone is edible”:
Now, I assume you’re thinking “I can swallow a spider and it won’t kill me, therefore they can’t be considered poisonous”. This isn’t true. You CAN eat plenty of spiders and you will absolutely survive it. You may even not suffer much problems because of that, like stomach irritation, or diarrhea, but that’s because the poison they contain isn’t powerful enough to seriously harm you.
Side note: an “interesting” thing may happen if you eat a venomous spider, while suffering from an open wound in your digestive system. I think there was an episode of “100 ways to die” dedicate to this idea. Or was it snake’s venom?
I can direct you to the entry in Wikipedia, that lists mere 15 edible species of spiders, instead of saying “pretty much each and everyone is edible”:
I’m well aware that people eat spiders. One of the spiders in this wiki is Trichonephila edulis, with “edulis” literally meaning “edible”.
But there is no mention of posion of any ill effect at all.
Now, I assume you’re thinking “I can swallow a spider and it won’t kill me, therefore they can’t be considered poisonous”. This isn’t true
Why not? The definition of “poisonous” I looked up is:
(of a substance or plant) causing or capable of causing death or illness if taken into the body.
That seems to fix exactly!
You may even not suffer much problems because of that, like stomach irritation, or diarrhea, but that’s because the poison they contain isn’t powerful enough to seriously harm you.
By that definition a taco is poisonous as well.
Ok, here is my counterpoint, I actually already made it in another comment. Spiders are a very popular prey. Lizards, rodents, birds … everyone eats spiders. Yet, they don’t die. My cat probably ate a spider today, I can’t find it anymore. It was a rather big Zoropsis spinimana. Yet, my cat probably will live. And they are so much smaller than a human.
Or was it snake’s venom?
I also mentioned that in the other comment. While ingested venom can be dangerous, spiders don’t have as potant venoms and are much smaller. So you’d really have to eat an unrealistic amount of spiders to feel any kind of effect from posion.
That’s a bit like eating enough bananas to die of radiation sickness …
I don’t need help. But I would urge you to not spread misinformation about spiders, I like them. Well actually you told people not to eat them … I support that. But you did it for the wrong reasons.
My good dude, what I said is correct and you’re going to hear it from me every time the topic of eating spiders is going to be brought up. I simply can’t find it in myself to waste the rest of this evening trying to convince a guy who expects argument, not a discussion.
Feel free to treat it as “a win” or whatever suits you.
you’re going to hear it from me every time the topic of eating spiders is going to be brought
I’m ok with that. It’s a very, very … very weird hill to die on, but till next time I guess?
You do realise I’m also against eating spiders? I just don’t think we need to tell people they are poisonous to do so. I’ve interviewed a few people and they are very much pro not eating spiders. I don’t think we have to lie about them being poisonous at all!
I ate spiders where they are served as a meal. And I still enjoy their companionship. This does not and won’t prevent me from pointing out that they are indeed poisonous - plenty of them in fact.
It’s the same thing as with certain mushrooms. The dose makes a poison. In case of spiders, eating one or two won’t do you much harm.
But that doesn’t make sense. Yes, the dose makes the poison. But by that standard everything is poisounus, even freaking water.
You are stretching the word beyond it’s meaning. You could easily eat an entire bowl of common spiders around your house with no ill effects. Not sure what happens if you eat a bowl of Atrax robustus, but apperently no one was yet stupid enough to try it, so we don’t know.
Water isn’t poisonous. It’s a colloquialism. Drinking large quantities of water WILL kill you, because it will (again, a colloquialism) “wash out your electrolytes, thus introducing electrolytic imbalance to the organism”.
Also, please stop making idiotic and potentially harmful claims that you can eat a bowl of spiders. Or, if you’re absolutely adamant that it’s true, please provide photos of you doing so.
Until I see a photo, or a recording of you eating a bowl of spiders, you’ll get no response of me. No distractions, no avoidance, no cheap dirty tricks. Put your money where your mouth is.
Omg that’s really interesting, I never would have guessed! Are the effects of the venom and the poison similar at all? I kinda had the intuition that venoms were generally at least kind of edible, probably just because snake venom is lol. Is it even the same chemicals between the two effects? Sorry, my mind is just blown, haha
It’s also most likley compeltly wrong. I don’t know where this guys get this information but I was unable to find any source to back that up.
And common sense would suggest, they are infact not poisonous.
For example, spiders are a really, really popular prey and get eaten from reptiles, mammal, birds and other athropods and they don’t die of poisonous as a result.
And while I can’t find any souce and tests with spider venom, snake venom has been tested when ingested. And while it can indeed cause harm, the dose required is vastly higher. As spiders venom is usually less potatent than snake venom and they are usually smaller, you’d need to eat a lot of spiders to feel any kind of posioning effect.
There are many toxins and some might produce similar effects when ingested, to those that were injected into the bloodstream. Some among these are similar to alcohol poisoning, some might probably give you a drug-like bad trip, others might be fatal. What I’m trying to say is, that there are many variables involved and the result “might vary”.
He is so confident that he might just be a troll. If he isn’t he is probably the greatest example of being confidently incorrect who I’ve seen posted here in a while.
I really wondered that too! Not sure how anyone could actually be this obstinate in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Might very well be a troll lol
Nah. I know people like that. They just shut down and reject everything that doesn't align with their world view. No point even arguing with them at that point, just let them live in their clown world.
You can sometimes have success by asking questions and getting them to elaborate and maybe find an inconsistency or error on their own. You need to enter their reality and help them tear it down from within and be aware that they might instead just kick you out of it (so if you really want to convince someone, you’ll have the most success if you can make it a pleasant experience they want to continue engaging with).
But this is a disagreement about terminology, which is purely decided by consensus or definitions, so it’s less likely to have some logic that can disprove it.
My conspiracy is that a lot of people lived in a time where you could just browbeat people into submission over whether or not you were right, because who was going to go to the library just to prove you wrong?
But now people can learn anything at any time from the slate portal in their pocket, and I believe some people have a hard time relinquishing that control and superiority they had.
Even if Brown Recluse spiders are poisonous, they are definitely ALSO venomous, and of the two traits it’s only the venom that’s ever going to be relevant right? I mean, who’s eating Brown Recluse spiders?
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