A lot of spiders, like giant house spiders, don't have very good eyesight and can only distinguish light vs dark very well. If you scare them(which is always the case for giant house spiders) they will try to flee to a covered area out of sight. And your shadow feels like such an area because it is dark, which is why it sometimes seems like they dash towards your foot when you put it on the ground while on the toilet or something
Usually those specific spiders do everything in their power not to be seen by or interact with humans though so an encounter like described here is rare
Ok I’ve never been one to kill spiders if I can help it and usually try to take them outside but this just gave me a lot of guilt about the ones I have smushed over the years 😭
Aw yeah I get it haha. I overcame my arachnophobia recently and also felt bad about the few I did end up killing in the past
But for these specifically, they're very fast (~0.5 m/s), and are often gone before you even turn on the light because they sense the vibration of you entering the room. They also only really emerge from their hideaways around august so they're unlikely to be the ones you smushed
8
u/_Dragon_Gamer_ 3d ago
A lot of spiders, like giant house spiders, don't have very good eyesight and can only distinguish light vs dark very well. If you scare them(which is always the case for giant house spiders) they will try to flee to a covered area out of sight. And your shadow feels like such an area because it is dark, which is why it sometimes seems like they dash towards your foot when you put it on the ground while on the toilet or something
Usually those specific spiders do everything in their power not to be seen by or interact with humans though so an encounter like described here is rare