When people call for residential pest control, it is often to deal with spiders. Spiders elicit many different reactions from people, many of them negative. However, there is no denying that spiders hold a certain fascination for people. Whether you admire them or loathe them, there is something about them from which it is difficult to look away.

Some of the most interesting things about spiders are difficult to observe. Here are some incredible facts about enigmatic arachnids. 

1. Spiders Digest Their Food Outside Their Bodies

Spiders feed primarily on insects and anything else that gets caught in their webs or that they can catch. However, they do not chew their food because they do not have teeth. Instead, they use their mouthparts to inject digestive fluid into their prey. This causes the body of the prey to turn into a liquid, allowing the spider to suck up the nutrients. 

2. Their Silk Is Super Strong

The silk from which spiders spin webs may seem fine and delicate. However, proportionate to its thickness, it is actually extremely strong. Different types of spiders produce silk of different strengths. The silk of the Darwin bark spider is the strongest material produced by a living organism and is 10 times stronger than Kevlar. If a strand of spider silk were as thick as a pencil, it could stop a flying 747 in midair. If there were a strand of steel the same size and thickness as a strand of spider silk, the latter would be five times stronger. 

Scientists have recognized the potential utility of synthesized spider silk and have been trying to figure out ways to reproduce it artificially under laboratory conditions. Thus far, they have been unsuccessful. 

3. They Spin Different Kinds of Silk

When you look at strands of spider silk, they may all look more or less the same. However, spiders use silk for different reasons. There is sticky silk for catching prey and smooth silk for building the framework of the web. They also use silk for transportation. Spiders don’t use the same silk for everything. Instead, their bodies are able to produce seven different kinds of silk that they use for different purposes. 

Spiders’ silk starts out as a liquid produced by special glands inside their bodies. It is only after it leaves the body and comes in contact with air that it hardens into a solid form. Spiders have seven different types of glands that produce silk, each of which produces a different type so the spider can choose the one that is appropriate to the task. 

4. They Have Blue Blood

To say that spiders have blue blood isn’t to say that they are aristocratic or snobby. In the case of spiders, it is the literal truth; their blood has a distinctive blue colour.

The colour of the blood depends on the metal in the blood that binds to oxygen so that it can be carried throughout the body. The oxygen-carrying ingredient in human blood is hemoglobin, which contains iron. That’s why human blood is red. Instead of hemoglobin, spiders have an ingredient in their blood called hemocyanin. Instead of iron, hemocyanin contains copper. It is the copper in their blood that makes spiders’ blood appear blue. Oxidized copper takes on a blue-green tinge, as you can tell if you ever look at a picture of the Statue of Liberty. 

Residential Pest Control for Spiders in Your Home

Regardless of your feelings about spiders, they aren’t necessarily the worst pests. Most species are harmless to humans, and all spiders avoid contact with humans if they can help it. Spiders do not cause property damage and may eat pests that do. Nevertheless, the presence of spiders means that there are also insect pests in your home that the spiders are feeding on. Call Truly Nolen for spider removal in Cambridge, and we can evaluate for other pests at the same time.