ISSUE #10: My Favorite YouTube Channel Is Obviously the One with the Dancing Spiders
Trust me on this one.
Because it’s October, and therefore spooky season, I figure it’s as good a time as any for me to launch Bugstack’s very first “theme month.” Halloween is sort of the only major holiday we have that celebrates bugs, the only time of year where we put up decorations of spiders and scorpions and cockroaches instead of shooing them out of the dark crevices of our homes. Unless Santa Claus is revealed to be some many-legged eldritch horror winging its way through the cold dark midwinter, it’s likely to stay that way. For the next four weeks, we at Bugstack are toasting the strange and unusual among the already strange and unusual, the costumed tricksters that hide in unlikely places, show off their flamboyant colors, or just generally give us the creeps.
This week, we have a very special tiny dancer with an odd way of attracting the attention of potential mates. One of my favorite pastimes is watching video footage of multicolored birds of paradise making absolute spectacles of themselves for the entertainment of ultra-discerning females. They make weird shapes of their bodies by puffing their feathers, they’re extremely loud, and, for whatever reason, the ritual continues to work generation after generation.
Insects, on the other hand, aren’t really known for mating displays of any kind. Most bugs live in a world dominated by scent, following pheromone trails whenever it’s time to link up with a member of their own species. Even most spiders do it this way: web-spinning females release pheromones into the air, or on strands of silk, and the roaming males eventually pick up the scent and find them that way.
Jumping spiders are different. They’re hunters, first of all, relying on their enormous dinner-plate eyes to find and ambush prey. Jumping spiders have compact, furry bodies and large heads, and their forward pair of eyes are so big they all look like they’re doing the Puss in Boots face whenever you see one. They’re charismatic, charming people who normally aren’t into spiders at all. In scientific terms, they’re just little guys.
