C'mon, you're not really afraid of this cute little guy, are ya? Photo Credit: Plamuekwhan/Shutterstock Few groups of animals are as feared as spiders. Doctors estimate at least 5% of people are arachnophobic, meaning they are terrified of the eight-legged critters. But such fear is largely misplaced. Of the nearly 47,000 species of spider on the planet, only 200 or so can actually bite through our tough skin and deliver venom that causes any kind of reaction. And of those, only a few are considered truly dangerous. Rather than fearing them, we should be in awe of just how incredibly diverse, successful, and unique these animals are. But turning fear into fascination is no easy feat. Hopefully, a new paper in PeerJ can help.Stefano Mammola and his colleagues have meticulously summarized these octo-appendaged wonders, documenting dozens of incredible facets of their diverse anatomies, behaviors, and lifestyles. There are so many spiders out there, and they are everywhere. "They are considered to be one of the most successful groups of organisms in terms of their long evolutionary history and diverse ecological impacts," the authors explain. "They are distributed in virtually all terrestrial ecosystems and play a key role as generalist carnivorous predators." To become such global dominators, spiders have diversified into many forms, which are summarized in the paper's first figure:
General anatomy of a spider and variation in body forms. Figure 1 from Mammola et al. 2017 From black widows to tarantulas, Mammola and his colleagues cover more than 100 different 'Spider World Records'. Here are just a few of them.
