Behavioural ecologist James O’Hanlon wants the world to know more about his favourite animal. After all, there are over 50,000 different species, some that can fly through the air, some play songs, solve puzzles, and even scuba dive. They’re found in every continent except for Antarctica, and have been around since millions of years before dinosaurs roamed the earth.
Oh, and they’re also the number one most feared animal on the planet: the spider.
O’Hanlon is on a mission to give spiders an image makeover, so that people can celebrate and appreciate them for the incredible creatures they are.
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Question: What is it about spiders that you think generates that ick factor in people?
James O’Hanlon: That’s actually a huge question in psychology in general. When psychologists study fears and phobias, for some strange reason, fear of spiders comes out as No. 1 of any type of fear on the planet.
More than fear of heights, fear of flying, fear of snakes, fear of dogs, spiders is the No. 1 fear that people experience. And it’s a bit of a head scratcher because it doesn’t really make any sense. There’s no clear answers as to why we have that sort of fear.
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I don’t attribute a lot of positive things to social media, but I will give it credit for turning me around on spiders. Arachnophobia scared the crap out of me as a kid. For years afterward, I’d never sit down on a toilet without first getting down on my hands and knees to make sure there weren’t any spiders lurking underneath the bowl. Thanks to years of spiderbro memes, now I generally view them as comrades.