SoylentNews

martyb writes:

A Mob of Horny Tarantulas is Prowling San Francisco:

October is turning out to be a bad month to live in San Francisco. First, utilities company PG&E initiated wide-ranging Bay Area blackouts to protect against the possibility of wildfires. Now it seems the warmer weather is attracting thousands of tarantulas looking for mates, so residents will have to fight off horny spiders in the dark.

[...]"San Francisco officials are warning residents to be on the lookout for thousands of giant male spiders," according to The Wall Street Journal. "The spiders aren't dangerous to people. In fact it's the other way around."

Creepy as they may be to those who [fear] them, spiders help humans by eating thousands of bugs every year that are a threat to crops.

"If spiders disappeared, we would face famine," New York's American Museum of Natural History's Norman Platnick told Treehugger this week. "Spiders are primary controllers of insects. Without spiders, all of our crops would be consumed by those pests."

While tarantulas do eat insects, frogs and small lizards, the spiders are mostly harmless to humans. Tarantula bites are painful like bee stings, but their venom is very mild.

[...]So if you happen to come across a tarantula on the trail, or under your sheets, "fear not, don't kill them," the site[*] continues. "Know that while they may look terrifying, they're doing the good work."

[*] Mount Diablo park website.

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