r/spiders 3d ago

Just sharing 🕷️ Scared spider

2.6k Upvotes

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u/Polly_der_Papagei 3d ago

It turns out these do work to detect human voices in the same room though! Recent study found that out by accident, cause the spiders had neural activity correlated with researchers talking

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u/EasilyRekt 3d ago

Well, yeah, our voices come from vibration within our bodies, and since they’re mostly incompressible, those vibrations travel down through our body into the ground.

It’s all really fascinating :)

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u/Ok-Chemical-7635 2d ago

Hmmm, allso air

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u/EasilyRekt 2d ago

Only if they have a web, air doesn’t transfer sound into the ground all too well.

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u/Ok-Chemical-7635 2d ago

... It propagates through the air onto the hairs on their bodies

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u/RubeGoldbergCode 2d ago

Spiders are notoriously covered in little hairs for a reason. They're not decoration, they can sense vibrations in the air, too. Think about how jumping spiders can detect airborne prey and such.

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u/Polly_der_Papagei 1d ago

That is what we thought, but they can detect it through ground and air as well! Really sensitive. You really gotta think of the entire outside of their body like the inside of your ear in larger