Friday, January 17, 2014

Spiderweek: Symbiotally Radical!

What’s that tingling sensation?! Maybe it’s Spiderweek, crawling over your lymph nodes!




Did you know …


That many spider species maintain a symbiotic relationship with human beings? It’s true! Also, in case you think I am stupid, I am aware that the word is “symbiotically” and not “symbiotally,” but I was making a portmanteau word out of “symbiote” and “totally.” So you can just take your pedantry and shove it! You know, they had a term for people like you in Nazi Germany: grammar Nazis!


Back to our spider symbiotes: many spiders have a biological relationship with humans in which both species benefit! In fact, whether or not you know it, you probably have a spider symbiote of your very own!


The relationship works like this:
A spider lives on or near a human body. For example, it might live in the cracks of a wall near your bed. Then, several times over the course of a day and night, the spider will bite its human partner, and suck out vital fluids from the puncture wounds. In this way, the spider benefits by getting regular, nutritious meals from the human, and the human benefits by being marginally hastened toward its own death. If people didn’t die, for one reason or another, we’d be crawling all over each other, and it’d be super gross. You’d be neck deep in butts and belly buttons! But this way, with spiders killing us a little bit, everything works out for everyone! So spiders aren’t all bad!

Bonus fact: Guess who my favorite spider symbiote is! Is it Marvel Comics’ Venom? Nope! It’s Spiderman, when he wore Venom’s goo suit. Or is it Carnage? Nope! Had it right the first time with Spiderman!

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