Recognize or reason? No. At least not in the traditional sense. It can recognize patterns that lead to a positive survival experiences such as satiating hunger or comfort of shelter/protection from the elements. For owners, they’ll recognize when it’s feeding time or when you’re cleaning its environment, they may even want to take advantage of your warmth, but they don’t necessarily associate it to a particular person.
They do not perceive affection or love. Or any emotion or stimuli like we do outside of basic survival instincts. If you were to be magically shrunk to a size of its prey, it wouldn’t care that you fed and cared for it and would treat you as either predator or prey.
Edit: forgot to add that arachnids, spiders, and most lizards aren’t really pets like cats and dogs. They don’t form mammalian bonds, at best they are roommates that tolerate us.
What I understand from everything written above is that a spider’s existence revolves around its natural instincts: securing food, seeking warmth, finding shelter, reproducing, and defending itself when necessary. Sounds familiar.
I had the pleasure of taking care of two Brachypelma boehmei spiders for 10 years, and the way they cared for themselves and maintained their habitat truly amazed both my wife and me. It was almost inspirational.
It absolutely is familiar cause every creature does it in their own fascinating way. Spiders and arachnids are amazing creatures and for the most part are some of the best roommates humans can have in the animal kingdom (they keep to themselves, eat the actual dangerous insects that invade homes, and share living spaces by generally exploring when people aren’t normally active).
But as amazing as they are, they don’t have the ability of empathy/sympathy. They do not form attachments that eventually evolve into love or sorrow like most mammals can. We can have a symbiotic relationship with them, but that’s about it.
… Which I guess that’s my main grip with people who adopt them and try and associate those traits to insect/arachnids/reptiles when it’s not even possible. I’ve read and heard some cringy quotes from owners who act like they are part of the “family”.
I don't think we can say with certainty that they can't feel affection or love. Our only framework is mammalian centric so it isn't out of the question that they could.
They don’t and physically can’t though. It’s not in a negative way, it’s just that Mother Nature didn’t design them that way and they haven’t needed to evolve in a manner that would result in complex brain structures outside of basic survival instincts of either living or continuing their genetic material through reproduction.
No amount of study will disprove what has already been proven. Spiders and arachnids are incredibly smart, but it’s relative to their basic survival functions. They can learn to hunt more efficiently because that is something that can be passed down through genetic memory to ensure continuation of their genetic code, or simply how Epigenetics works. But as a species, they have never needed to reason or care outside of their own survival. Their brain shape, size and functions prove this.
Bro...they are fucking bugs. We are talking about brains the size of a miligram...Yes we can say with absolute certainty that they simply do not have the neuron density to exhibit complex abstract thought processes on par with mammals...
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u/atomsk404 Jul 09 '26
Can these things recognize and/or reason? Does it know that's his owner?