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MansfromDaVinci t1_iy7r2nd wrote

Early mammals were probably insectivores, spiders were lunch.

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baumpop t1_iy8dhp0 wrote

Spiders were the size of dogs

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oldshitnewshit78 t1_iy8nxtw wrote

Actually spiders never really got that big, as far as we are aware.

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baumpop t1_iy8ooif wrote

Interesting. We know for sure that scorpions, dragonflies, and certain worm types were hundreds of times larger than today's species.

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Arstanishe t1_iy9i0uz wrote

Well, that was maybe 250 mln years ago, and mammals only appeared maybe 80-100 mil years ago, when insects were already closer to today in size

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baumpop t1_iy9l5uj wrote

Weren't they micro fauna initially? Like prey to pretty much anything?

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Arstanishe t1_iy9lwgt wrote

Afaik, the first proto-mammals were therapsids, which were not that small. However, most mammals (or all?) I can't remember - came from rodent-like creatures after the cretaceous extinction event 65 mil ago. But that time insects were definitely even smaller...

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Swampwolf42 t1_iy8r5wp wrote

No they weren’t

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baumpop t1_iy8tlwa wrote

I didn't say they were out of the water. The largest pre-spider on record was around 22 inches. Bout the size of my dog.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megarachne

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Swampwolf42 t1_iy8v0zj wrote

That is an aquatic arthropod. Not a spider. So again, No.

The very first sentence in the article you linked: “If the original identification as a spider had been correct, Megarachne would have been the largest known spider to have ever lived.” (Bolding mine)

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baumpop t1_iy8wtd7 wrote

Everything came from water.

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Swampwolf42 t1_iy8xdh8 wrote

Very good. You get a gold star. That doesn’t mean the largest prehistoric spider was 22 inches. By your “logic” the largest chicken was 70 feet long.

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Vladi_Sanovavich t1_iy9cn4l wrote

Mmhmm that's a whole lot of chicken. I wonder how many chicken nuggets we can make out of that?

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baumpop t1_iy8xgce wrote

I mean yeah.

Where'd the entomologist go?

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Trankalanka123 t1_iy9iapp wrote

Monkey and human share common ancestor. Monkey and human closely related. Monkey eat banana, monkey have opposable thumbs and hands. Human eat banana, human have opposable thumbs and hands. Monkey and human looks similar, but monkey and human not the same. Monkey not human, human not monkey.

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fatboi238 t1_iyb8vku wrote

not everything the sun didn't come from water

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BuncleCurt t1_iy8twcg wrote

Wow, that'd be a really big lunch.

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baumpop t1_iy8u1b9 wrote

Lunch? What are you a boomer?

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fatboi238 t1_iyb91t7 wrote

dude just ignored 4 points to call someone a boomer

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Brandon432 t1_iy9a7pu wrote

Kind of doubt that. With just as many sources as you have provided, I imagine our instinctive fear of spiders comes from some evolutionary factors.

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MansfromDaVinci t1_iyanj71 wrote

perhaps a more recent thing, like our fear of snakes. Big, clearly dangerous animals, with pointy teeth, like wolves and bears, we're just afraid of on principle. Wee venomous things, like snakes and spiders, prehaps we needed an instinctive fear of.

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poisonoakman t1_iy7jntq wrote

https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/video/tv/grasshopper-mouse-hunts-scorpions-howls-moon

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Henwen t1_iy9l2jq wrote

That is amazing! Thank you for sharing.

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shokzz t1_iy9q3s8 wrote

What the …? This comes across as comedy and total fiction to me. Amazing that this little fella is real and how evolution has created such a unique animal.

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DamionFury t1_iy9j6p8 wrote

Likely not solely to do with spiders, but we have an actual in-built ability to rapidly identify things like spiders in our environment. It's a phenomenon pretty specific to spiders and snakes. Here's a phys.org article from 2015 on our predisposition: https://phys.org/news/2015-04-human-spiders-scientific-focus.html

It is present very early on; as early as a few months old. This study found that presenting 5-month-old babies with pictures of shapes in 3 different configurations, one of which was a spider, resulted in the child focusing on the spider above other images.

Here's another article that talks about it. https://www.fatherly.com/health-science/when-do-babies-develop-fear-of-heights-snakes-and-spiders

Note: There's no evidence of an instinctual fear response; just the tendency to identify and fixate on spider and snake images. Still, the ability to identify them in our environment probably relates to survival; individuals that had that ability were more likely to survive and procreate.

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glowing-fishSCL t1_iy9xakm wrote

And in the present day, fear of spiders isn't as instinctual and universal as people think, I think most cultures have some strong feelings about spiders, but I know of at least one major culture (Arabic) where spiders are considered positively.

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ScoobyDeezy t1_iyathye wrote

I tend to think of most phobias as leftover evolutionary responses to existential dangers.

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markjritchie t1_iy7z4hx wrote

It depends how early. If we're talking really early, then they were far more intelligent than us.

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JayManty t1_iy8xea9 wrote

You severely overestimate the intelligence of spiders and severely underestimate the intelligence of vertebrates

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cdh79 t1_iy9k46h wrote

I dunno, have you seen the state of some people these days?

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anomthrowaway748 t1_iy88vtt wrote

If we’re talking really really early, the spiders would be scared of the ‘human’

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AtlasClone t1_iy9n802 wrote

Bruh I'm sick of people acting like spiders are in any way a threat. Unless you live in Australia they're the most inconsequential thing in the world. Walking through a cobweb was the least if early humans or mammals concers.

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Showerthoughts_Mod t1_iy7clvt wrote

This is a friendly reminder to read our rules.

Remember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not "thoughts had in the shower!"

(For an explanation of what a "showerthought" is, please read this page.)

Rule-breaking posts may result in bans.

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skexzies t1_iy9jppp wrote

Based on what remains I find in my basement, if spiders had grown to about 200lbs in the stone age, we sure wouldn't be the dominant species of 2022. I'll bet the world would look completely different.

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crown_valley t1_iy9lxut wrote

Why is a 200 lb spider worse than a 200 lb crocodile, lion, bear, wolf etc? They would be a nuisance at best. We overpowered much bigger and scarier beasts. These big hypothetical spiders would never have been a match to our elaborate communication/team work and tool building, even in the stone age.

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that_one_guy37559 t1_iyb0y7u wrote

What, they didn't have irrational fear like us, they would see them and eat them, no care at all

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melunit t1_iybx26z wrote

Spiders are cute I don’t believe this at all. But lunch yes of course

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-K_a_r_m_a- t1_iy9djzb wrote

I think at some point spiders were mammals. Have you seen what most animals evolved from?

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Yalort t1_iy9fh4p wrote

Actually i think the closest common ancestors to spiders that mammals have would be the ur-bilatera, a marine worm. This split happened millions of years before mammals began.

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-K_a_r_m_a- t1_iye6ufc wrote

Had to google. Thanks for educating my mind. Ask me about anything but not spiders. I have a strong dislike towards anything with more than 4 legs and and intense fear for anything more that 6 legs.

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kyunirider t1_iy81hpf wrote

No, this is only a modern human problem, in the past our ancestors were too busy surviving to give a shit about anything so insignificant and they saw that spiders keep bugs out of the cave.

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Thexin92 t1_iy8ccvw wrote

He's talking about mammals, not early humans. In ancient times, insects and spiders were of tremendous size due to a higher oxygen concentration in the atmosphere, while early mammals were the size of mice. Those days, spiders sat securely above almost all mammals in the food chain.

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baumpop t1_iy8doks wrote

Shinfo side note. Venom has evolved over 20 separate times on earth.

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SuperCaffeineDude t1_iy98s1e wrote

Surviving encompasses not being bitten by snakes and spiders, they might not be such a problem in north Europe, but no ones odds of survival improve playing with animals that are often venomous.

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Niche_Humor t1_iy7e9gb wrote

What do you mean "early" mammals? This forum alone is full of people who freak out at the idea of them. Let's talk about snakes - they move without legs or fins - so they made a woman eat an apple, which made us all destined to burn in a volcano unless we believe that some guy who said that maybe we should be nice to each other for a change got nailed to a board but his father said it would be okay except for those who predate him because they were chosen first but also those who believe in Abraham but fuck the rest, but.... 🤮 My point is that so many of us are freaking out about shit we know nothing about.

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