Talk:Spider

Untitled

If you want to identify a spider, and preferably have a picture, please check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Spiders/Undetermined pictures.

I'm not quite sure whether this is the correct place to make this observation and apologise in advance if it is not. There seems to be an enthusiastic gliding from an evolutionary trait to a suggestion of intention in places, eg " they wave the first pair of legs in form [I don't understand that at all, but it is not the point I am hoping to make] to their heads to mimic antennae, which spiders lack, and to conceal the fact that they have eight legs rather than six; they develop large color patches round one pair of eyes to disguise the fact that they generally have eight simple eyes, while ants have two compound eyes; they cover their bodies with reflective hairs to resemble the shiny bodies of ants. In some spider species,..."

They wave their legs - no problem. To conceal the fact? Wouldn't it be better to say something like, "which conceals the fact"? Similarly, "they develop large colour patches to ...? wouldn't "which" be preferable again here?"

Then, "they cover their bodies .... to resemble" - that really implies intention by the spider, which is surely not the intention of the author, is it? There are other places where I'm happy to have instinct described that way, eg the spider curls up a leaf to make a nest, where there is an action with a purpose; but it doesn't grow reflective hairs deliberately or instinctively, does it? It is just that that feature has been selectively preferred in some spiders because it happens to look shiny.

I hope I don't sound too critical or pedantic as I found this a fascinating article and I appreciate all the hard, dedicated work that has gone into it. Dawright12 (talk) 15:24, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that strictly non-teleological phrasing is usually longer and clumsier, e.g. "selectively preferred in some spiders because it happens to look shiny". --Philcha (talk) 16:51, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

from calgary alberta canada

i found a black spider with two distinct red markings which where dots side by side and wondering if anyone knows what breed it is it was found near my bathroom wall??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aaroncurrie69 (talk • contribs) 08:46, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

You did not say anything about the size of the spider or what it was doing near the wall. Check out the article on widow spiders first. If it is a roughly globular, glossy black spider and if the dots are on the underside of the abdomen, you would want to keep it away from people and pets. It is rare for widow spiders to go indoors, but if you did see a black widow in your bathroom it might have come up a pipe or something from the basement in search of warmth. As long as you don't pick it up or otherwise squeeze it, it would be hard to get bitten, but children might touch it. The dose of spider venom that one receives gets diluted by one's total body volume, so little kids get a much higher dose and can be killed if they are not treated.

There are lots of other black spiders, and some of them have red spots. There is one species of large wolf spider that has red spots at the outside corners of the fangs. They are not really black, but they can be pretty dark. They are very much inclined to run away, and are not inclined to bite. Another possible candidate would be some kind of jumping spider. There are lots of black jumping spiders with spots, but I am not familiar with one with two red spots. On the other hand, that family of spiders is huge.

If you ever see that spider again, maybe you could get a digital photo of it and post it somewhere.

If you want the spider out of your bathroom and don't want to kill your visitors, you could put a glass over it, slide a card under the mouth of the glass, and then pick the whole thing up. It must be pretty cold now where you are, but maybe putting it in a shed on the next warm day would give it a fair chance to find shelter and survive.P0M (talk) 10:30, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

and you put your finger in its tounge. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.204.126.42 (talk) 15:46, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Minor typo in section 1.5 toward end of first para

Minor typo in section 1.5 toward end of first para "in fact the human eye is only about fives times sharper than a jumping spider's" the s following five should be deleted. Motorcycle (talk) 18:50, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I've fixed it. -Philcha (talk) 23:48, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Trivial videogame reference deleted

the below information is trivial at best. It did not belong under the "arachnophobia" subsection.

Arachnophobia is also the title of a 1990 film, as well as a spin-off video game, in which fictitious deadly spiders overrun a small California town. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kenji000 (talk • contribs) 15:19, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

It's not necessarily pointless trivia in this article (though its placement may be in question). Depictions of spiders in modern popular culture indicate what spiders mean to humans in the 20th and early 21st centuries, and I think there is a case to be made to say it's notable enough for a mention in an encyclopaedic article. In a similar vein, the following text was removed from the article: "In more modern times, spiders have been the subject of movies such as the 2002 comedy-horror Eight Legged Freaks." Both of these examples depict spiders as harmful and creatures that are feared, and this concept is recognised by people who are not themselves arachnophobic. This is partly due to arachnophobia being so common, but I think depictions of spiders in modern popular culture have a place in this article. The only question that needs to be asked is which examples are most important, since we need to discriminate, and these films are only two examples amongst many. leevclarke (talk) 02:15, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

This is a rather long article, so the "culture" section has to be brief, and does not emphasise any particular artform or culture. If you start giving details of e.g. English-language movies since 1950, there would be a good case for giving other cultures and artforms an equal mention. I suspect the result would be a medium-sized article in its own right. --Philcha (talk) 06:17, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Lead Taxobox image change?

It seems, at least to me, that merely representing one type of spider (Orb weaver) in the taxobox isn't really too good. Perhaps, if someone could do it when they have they have the time (I am not good at doing this), create a collage picture representing some of the major spiders into one picture. Something akin to the taxobox image in this article: Crurotarsi. --Spotty11222 (talk) 01:31, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Especially as orb-web spiders are a minority, they just spend more on advertising. But I've looked at Crurotarsi, and the collage does nothing for me. I'd be tempted to use the funnel-web pic, as that shows spiders' signature feature - the fangs. --Philcha (talk)

spiders

spiders can be also dangerous and sometimes they are harmful —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.64.72.225 (talk) 12:31, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

What is your point? There are a few species of spiders that may initiate hostilities with human being, but they are rare. Some among them have venom that can cause medical problems. So there are some dangers associated with them. The article has already covered these dangers in a responsible way.

What do you mean when you say that spiders are sometimes harmful? Other than occasionally biting people, they do no harm. They do not even poop on your lawn. If they all died you and everyone else would be knee deep in insects before you could buy a flame thrower. P0M (talk) 22:08, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Edit warring

I notice that three or more individuals have been swapping versions back and forth for the last several days. Let's not have an edit war or a revision war. If people will not have a rational discussion about proposed changes on this discussion page then things are likely to go from bad to worse.P0M (talk) 04:38, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Spider anatomy

It seems that a lot of the information in the spider anatomy article is duplicated or even exceeded here. Perhaps some of the material from this article should be moved there so that this article is less bulky and conforms to summary style. Also, I noticed that the diagrams at spider anatomy are much better than the ones here. Kaldari (talk) 23:51, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Re moving info to Spider anatomy, Spider is a GA (reassessed Oct 2008) while Spider anatomy is "unassessed" an dthe second half if it has no citations. It would be a disservice to readers to move info from a more reliable (because of the citations) to a less reliable one (too few citations). It would be worth discussing this when Spider anatomyreaches GA or better. --Philcha (talk) 05:45, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

This makes no sense to me. The reliability of the information doesn't change depending on which article it's in. The citations stay with the information. If you move information to the spider anatomy article, it's still cited and still reliable. It would certainly help improve the reliability of the spider anatomy article (which as you mention needs improvement). Summarizing the information here doesn't make it less reliable. Looking at it from the point of view of this article versus the other article doesn't make sense to me. It's not a competition between articles. The more all articles are reliable, the better. You don't edit articles according to their assessment status. That's putting the cart before the horse. Kaldari (talk) 16:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

It's not a matter of competition, it's about whether I'm happy about relying on an article that has not been proved to meet quality standards like WP:V. --Philcha (talk) 17:09, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

You might want to explain "the diagrams at spider anatomy are much better than the ones here". The tagmosis one is the same; Spider shows the head structures of the major arthropod groups, which Spider anatomy does not; Spider anatomy shows details of the leg anatomy, which Spider does not; the two use different images for internal anatomy. The one used at Spider works well with the text here, for example it is colour-coded for the major organ systems. --Philcha (talk) 05:45, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

One of the diagrams I was referring to was File:Spider-characteristics.png, which I already moved here. It was a definite improvement on File:Archindae_characters.jpg. The other one was the internal anatomy diagram. The one in spider anatomy is also color coded for the organ systems so I'm not sure why it wouldn't be an improvement on the diagram here, but if you think this one works better with the text, that's fine. Kaldari (talk) 16:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I prefer the existing one because:

• It identifies organs by numbers rather than labels, so I can size it to suit the page layout and add a legend using {{Annotated image}}, a template I use a lot - check it out. The pic in Spider anatomy can't be displayed at a smaller size to suit the layout, because the text labels would be illegible - a pont I made at the Graphics workshop. Also a new version of the pic in Spider anatomy would be required for each non-English WP ; with {{Annotated image}}, editors can use the existing pic and change the labels to their language in the template. I "sold" {{Annotated image}} to a Dutch editor and the Dutch version of a diagram quantifying mass extinctions is used several times.
• Since the colours are identifiers rather than realistic, I think they work better if they have higher contrast levels. -Philcha (talk) 17:03, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

{{editsemiprotected}} There are two references to a 'vegetarian spider', and one to a 'vegetarian species'. Vegetarianism is a human philosophy, not an evolutionary adaption. Rather, an animal which does not eat other animals is called a herbivore. These references should be replaced with 'herbivorous spider' and 'herbivorous species'. 80.42.31.240 (talk) 15:23, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I've edited this section, and never noticed this >.>

Y Done, checking ref to verify --King Öomie 15:35, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Both refs specifically use the term Vegetarian, so can someone a little better versed verify that this change was in the right direction? --King Öomie 15:37, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

The source says "predominantly vegetarian". "Herbivorous" is ambiguous - it could refer to any vegetarian or to one that eats grass rather than e.g. leaves (folivore) or fruit (frugivore). --Philcha (talk) 16:59, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Section missing

Araneomorphae is now just a blank section heading. Somebody had messed around with "spider bites." There was an unneeded wikilink within the title for the spider bite pictorial, and whoever did the most recent editing simply removed the entire illustration. I've fixed that, but then noticed that the formatting for that area of the article has become very strange. No time right now to chase this problem down. P0M (talk) 09:20, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Why is this protected?

PLEASE I WANT TO KNOW! 64.30.108.152 (talk) 04:50, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I've asked for an admin to unprotected the article. I suggest 64.30.108.152 avoid SHOUTING, as that is often associated with undesirable behaviours like vandalism and others. --Philcha (talk) 06:30, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

The article was protected because it consistently receives a lot of vandalism from anonymous editors. If you have an edit suggestion to make, drop a note at WP:RFED. JamieS93^❤ 20:20, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, didn't mean to shout. I wonder why someone would vandalize an article about spiders... 64.30.108.152 (talk) 22:32, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Up to end-Oct 2009, when Spider was semi-protected (i.e. protected against IPs but not against logged-in users), it was vandalised several times a day, and in a few cases it was necessary to paste in sections from older versions of the article - which is a PITA. Two admins have just reviewed the track record, and suggest keeping semi-protected. Perhaps you should register - it takes under 20 mins, including getting the confirmation email; you'll be edit semi-protected articles; you can set your own preferences. --Philcha (talk) 23:37, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Pending changes

This article is one of a number selected for the early stage of the trial of the Wikipedia:Pending Changes system on the English language Wikipedia. All the articles listed at Wikipedia:Pending changes/Queue are being considered for level 1 pending changes protection.

The following request appears on that page:

Comments on the suitability of theis page for "Pending changes" would be appreciated.

Please update the Queue page as appropriate.

Note that I am not involved in this project any much more than any other editor, just posting these notes since it is quite a big change, potentially

Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 00:07, 17 June 2010 (UTC).

Clarification

I was discussing spiders with my son and as always we referred to Wikipedia as our reference. However, there is still some confusion as the article on Spiders seems to say that venom injecting fangs qualify an arachnid (which is an eight legged) insect as a spider, and on the spider anatomy article it seems to say that the silk producing ability is the differentiating feature. Please clarify for me as well as for future wikipedians. Thanks speednat (talk) 02:16, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

You need to read the article. Spiders are not the only arachnids, which also include mites. Spiders are the only ones in which the chelicarae as modified as fangs for injecting venom, and also produced by spinnerets. The fossil record of spiders and their ancestors show how long the features have existed, but not exactly when they appeared. --Philcha (talk) 04:25, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I have read the pertinent portions of the article and I would not have asked if it was clear. I know what it says about what they (spiders) have in relations to arthropods and insects; however, it is not very clear as to what is a qualifying feature. For example, look at birds. Again, the question is posed as this is: Are spiders different from other arachnids and other insects in that they are eight legged (which makes them arachnids) and with fangs and spinnerets. Do all spiders have these two features? and do only spiders have these two features? speednat (talk) 01:38, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

You "I know what it says about what they (spiders) have in relations to arthropods and insects" shows need you need to read Arthropod and possibly other articles, before you stuff your son's head with mistakes. --Philcha (talk) 03:32, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

If you don't know, just say so. No need to get rude. Why are you being rude when a simple question is asked? If I have problem ascertaining the answer to that question due to ambiguity in two separate articles, then perhaps others will to. Instead of a comment of "You need to read the article", either answer the question or direct me to who can. Or just don't say anything. As I have said, it is not very clear and I am not an uneducated person. speednat (talk) 04:22, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Further discussion moved to here. speednat (talk) 04:20, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

For the record, the synapomorphies that define the order Araneae are:

• abdominal spinnerets and silk glands
• cheliceral venom glands
• male pedipalps modified for sperm transfer
• lack of the trochanter-femur depressor muscle

See Coddington and Levi (1991). "Systematics and evolution of spiders (Araneae)". Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 22: 565-592. Kaldari (talk) 06:25, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Inaccuracies in the lead sentence

Yesterday, I corrected a factual inaccuracy in the lead sentence. An hour later this was reverted by User:Philcha and remained reverted for most of today until I changed it back. The information in dispute is not controversial and can be verified in virtually any book or paper dealing with spider anatomy. As one example, you can take a look at figures 10-13 of "Pelegrina Franganillo and other jumping spiders formerly placed in the genus Metaphidippus (Araneae:Salticidae)", Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 154(4). These figures show a clear distinction between the fang and the entire chelicera. What's more, there is even a part of the chelicerae known as the "fang furrow" which is the groove on the chelicerae that the fang folds into. It is worrisome to see someone reverting factual corrections on such a high profile article that does not seem to be familiar with the subject or willing to investigate the accuracy of their assumptions. I would encourage anyone editing this article to be diligent about verifying the information presented, especially in the lead of the article. Kaldari (talk) 04:33, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I have just checked Ruppert, E.E., Fox, R.S., and Barnes, R.D. (2004). Invertebrate Zoology (7 ed.). Brooks / Cole. pp. 571–584. ISBN 0030259827, and you're right, "fang" is the distal section. Sorry.

However, you should check and update the main text first, and then check that the lead contains nothing that is in the main text. I think I've now done this, please tell me whether you agree. --Philcha (talk) 12:32, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to verify the information. I've cleaned up some of the wording in the body, so hopefully everything is consistent now. Kaldari (talk) 21:24, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Couple minor mistakes spotted

In Evolution->Family tree section:

• "The cladogram on the right [...]", but there's no cladogram.
• Typo: monopyhletic -> monophyletic

moved anon contrib from the top to proper place P0M (talk) 15:39, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Typo fixed. Kaldari (talk) 18:22, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

References

I was not aware that a "References" section was supposed to be a recapitulation of the works previously cited in the article. That does not seem to be common practice elsewhere in Wikipedia, but I may be mistaken. TomS TDotO (talk) 16:16, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

For my own education on this point, I checked the featured article for today, Diocletian. Aren't featured articles supposed to represent some kind of standard for articles? I notice that there are items listed in the "Secondary references" for that article which are not cited in the article. I don't want to be a fanatic about this, but I found the book that I mentioned to be an interesting survey of information about spiders, in particular about their evolution, and it has an extensive bibliography. I thought that it would be helpful to the person interested in spiders to take a look at this book. It should be no problem to make a citation to the book for some point or other about spiders, but I would feel uncomfortable doing that, just for the purpose of validating its status as a "reference". TomS TDotO (talk) 14:46, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps add a Further reading section. William Avery (talk) 15:28, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Does this have something to do with the commenting out of the entire "References" section? TomS TDotO (talk) 15:21, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

The article had a section "Footnotes" for <ref ...>...</ref> before I starting working on it. As TomS TDotO said, the "References" section was a recapitulation of the works previously cited in the article, i.e. duplication of information. I suggest:

• I re-title "Footnotes" as "References" for <ref ...>...</ref>
• Any who wants add works that are not already cited can create / extend a "Further reading" section - see WP:LAYOUT for the position.

We keep the commented out stuff for about 6 months, which should be enough time to creat / extend a "Further reading" section. --Philcha (talk) 16:19, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Since fourteen months later this had not been done, I've gone ahead and completed it. Only one reference in the section was used in the text; I deleted it.—DocWatson42 (talk) 00:47, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Taxonomy

In Spider#Taxonomy, the WL to Opisthothelae redirects right back to Spider#Taxonomy. (Sorry, I don't have the expertise to sort that out). --Stfg (talk) 14:33, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Opisthothelae is not in Spider nor in "Invertebrate Zoology" by Rupprt, Fox & Barnes. --Philcha (talk) 18:57, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

It is word 9 of Spider#Taxonomy. Try following the link there. --Stfg (talk) 20:26, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

You're right, and I must very sleepy.

If you like, you can use Coddington (the greatest authority on spiders) to create a stub for Opisthothelae (it's in ref 66 of Spider, so you can get the proper citation from there).

Or I could remove the redirect from Opisthothelae and some admin will delete the article. --Philcha (talk) 22:14, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘As a layman, I won't try to influence that decision, but I've done some further research as to what the spider-related articles do overall. With abbreviations Myg, Ara and Opi for the candidate suborders, here's the current state of Wikipedia articles:

• Article Spider:
  • Taxobox: Myg & Ara suborders
  • taxonomy section text: Myg & Ara infraorders of Opi
  • taxonomy section table: Myg & Ara suborders
• Article Spider taxonomy:
  • Lead: "three suborders"
  • Sections: Myg & Ara infraorders of Opi
  • Table of Families: Myg & Ara suborders
• Article List of families of spiders: Myg & Ara suborders
• Article Mygalomorphae: Myg infraorder of Opi
• Article Araneomorphae: Ara suborder (with infraorders of its own); cladogram recognises Opi as a clade, declaring no rank
• Pages that link to "Opisthothelae" (that is, to the redirect page itself, shows that only very few, family, superfamily and species articles in Wikipedia link to it.
• Wikispecies Araneae and lower level articles sonsistently treat Myg & Ara as infraorders of Opi.

One more point: the Coddington article to which you gave the reference includes Opisthothelae in a cladogram, but doesn't declare a rank. Same with the Tree of Life. Does the professional literature actually require it ranked, or is an easy way forward just to stop declaring a rank for it and refer to it as unranked in the few taxoboxes that mention it?

Meanwhile, I'm undoing the wikilink in Spider#Taxonomy, just to avoid the self-redirect. That way, it can still redirect for other articles. Of course, if this is mistaken, please do revert me. --Stfg (talk) 14:55, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks!

Coddington didn't require it ranked, and he's very professional. --Philcha (talk) 20:04, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

There's a quite good article in the Italian Wikipedia, so today I've replaced the redirect with a stub based on a loose translation of that at Opisthothelae, using Coddington and Taxonomicon as references. I think it manages to be neutral about questions of rank. Please would you take a look and, well, do whatever needs doing. Thanks. --Stfg (talk) 20:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Arachnology, like entomology, is gradually moving away from the use of Linnean taxonomic ranks. Luckily, the taxobox template supports unranked clades just fine. Nice work on the stub, by the way! Kaldari (talk) 20:24, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Stfg. --Philcha (talk) 12:25, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 174.7.7.68, 8 July 2011

Spiders are arthropods. Spiders come to people to consume them. A type of spider is a tall black spider. A spider has string legs a stomach and two eyes.

174.7.7.68 (talk) 21:14, 8 July 2011 (UTC) Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed.

• Most of the proposed change is wrong, and the rest is already there. Read Spider - it's a long article because the subject is complex. --Philcha (talk) 08:55, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Seeking permission to edit the "Benefits to Humans" section, as it does not directly include the use of spiders as a deterrent to species of pest. As this is arguably the most significant benefit these creatures provide to humans, I suggest it should be placed ahead mentions about spiders being a food source in Cambodian culture. It is almost insulting such an evolutionary wonder is denounced from a friend-of-man's agriculture in favor of stating that is tastes good when fried. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.15.201.67 (talk) 00:29, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Image caption needs updating

The caption, "Goliath birdeater (Theraphosa blondi), the largest spider, next to a ruler." should be changed or made more clear, as the giant huntsman spider is considered the largest by leg-span. --Pubby8 (talk) 04:24, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I think that if people were asked which of two humans was larger, a 6'3" 200 lb. basketball player or a 5' 3" 400 lb. sumo wrester, they would go with the sumo wrestler. P0M (talk) 05:08, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Silk genes inserted into mammals

"spider silk genes have been inserted into mammals and plants to see if these can be used as silk factories"

Haha and..? Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt for one second that some idiots have tried this. But idiots try a lot of things. How many people microwaved spiders hoping that if they got bitten by them afterwords they'd turn into Spider Man? Probably about the same amount of people who tried this. Christ, probably some of the SAME people who tried this. Is it even worth mentioning? If anything it goes some way to undermining the integrity of the article. And biologists lol.--62.30.162.142 (talk) 06:52, 3 March 2012 (UTC)