8 spiders in our stomach, really?
It’s an old urban legend; apparently, human beings unintentionally swallow 8 spiders per year in their sleep.
True or false? According to professionals, spider specialists, it's highly unlikely that the legend is true. In an interview with the BBC in 2017, the spider expert at London Zoo, Dave Clarke, pointed out that “most predators don’t attack anything bigger than themselves, because they know they won’t survive”. In other words, “it’s not the small beast that’s going to eat the big one”. It's therefore extremely rare for a spider to approach your mouth.
In addition, spiders are highly sensitive to vibrations. Our breathing, and our snoring, will quickly dissuade them from coming to see us. Rod Crawford, a Seattle museum curator of arachnology, wrote in a 2014 article that “vibrations play a large part in the sensory universe of spiders. A spider would not voluntarily approach a sleeping person”.
And let’s not forget that many people don’t sleep with their mouths wide open!
Origin of a false claim
According to the BBC, Lisa Holst, a Swedish columnist, is the originator of this urban legend that is, to say the least, frightening (and disgusting). It was in a 1993 article that she allegedly spread this “fake news,” along with other completely fabricated anecdotes, in order to demonstrate how gullible readers are and how they don’t take the time to verify the information relayed.
She wasn’t wrong.
(MH with AsD - Source: Demotivateur - Illustration: Unsplash)