Posted on 02/18/2010 7:27:41 AM PST by cajuncow
Scientists figure humans may be born with a fear of spiders and snakes, healthy phobias that up the odds of survival in the wild. It's not known how such an inborn fear might develop, however.
Now researchers have proven that unborn crickets can gain a fear of spiders based on their mother's harrowing experiences.
Scientists put pregnant crickets into terrariums containing a wolf spider. The spiders' fangs were covered with wax so the spiders could stalk but not kill the pregnant crickets. After the crickets laid their eggs, the researchers compared the behavior of the offspring with offspring whose mothers hadn't been exposed to spiders.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
A whole new level of "creepy",
My 54 year old bro is terrified of spiders. Also feathers...but that’s because we had pillow wars when he was little.
I am TERRIFIED of spiders. Have been for as long as I can remember. They’re just creepy. I am so bad, I can’t even look at a picture of them without freaking out.
Ok, so it appears that those old wives tales about being frightened when pregnant and passing that fear to the baby are true.
I wonder how much this study cost the taxpayers.
I know, it wasn't a nice thing to do, LOL.
sw
Spiders are spawn. No one is going to tell me otherwise.
I walk just fine with 2 legs. Eight is just being greedy.
Wolf spiders with frickin laser beams on their heads?
Snakes would say that having two legs is greedy.
I remember when that fake picture of the soliders in Iraq holding what was thought to be one massive spider but it was just one big one eating another big one...
My dad sent it to me in my email and I threw up in my garbage can...no lie.
He made me take half a sick day for that little stunt.
You barfed just looking at a picture? Wow!
Jim Stafford knew this in the “70”’s
But snakes eat the spiders, so they are good in my book.
Give me a yard full of snakes over a garden full of spiders any day.
Deviled eggs for lunch didn’t help, I’m sure.
One summer, I went fishing in the basin. Garden spiders, aka banana spiders, were everywhere across the canal we were going down. I was laying on the bottom of the boat physically ill by the time we got through. My father wanted to know what in the world was wrong with me. Sadly the only way out was the way we got in.
I like snakes too, used to catch them when I was a kid. Now my cats catch them for me and bring them in. I don’t like spiders but I do respect them and usually leave them alone. Except for the black widows, just cannot have them around in the gargage so they have to be exterminated. I always apologize first before I kill them though.
“Scientists figure humans may be born with a fear of spiders and snakes”
Are these the same scientists that say that we are just a lump of cells until we are born?
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