Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Cobaldunderpants]

That is the cutest thing I have ever seen come from spider-kind.

Also while we are tossing around fun spider facts: Jumping spiders have some of the best vision of all spiders. They are the eagles of the spider world.

[wierd]

Can they spot an maul kobold thieves to death?

If they can catch them before they flee, keeping a few on guard duty near doors would be worth the lack of silk.

Paper mache' chitin only has to hold up against copper daggers, afterall.

[Cobaldunderpants]

Can they spot an maul kobold thieves to death?

If they can catch them before they flee, keeping a few on guard duty near doors would be worth the lack of silk.

Paper mache' chitin only has to hold up against copper daggers, afterall.

I had one set up like that. He could catch up to the kobolds, but more often than not they could dodge his attacks.

[wierd]

Then they need danger room training first against disarmed goblins to get their bite skill to phenomenal levels first!

[Monk321654]

I thought most animals can't learn?

[wierd]

Ground hunting spiders are an exception in the arthropoda family.

Many species are smart enough to navigate a maze, and even remember the maze.

A giant version could possibly be very intelligent indeed. Just slap the [canlearn] tag on. Already slapping [trainable], [pet], and [child], so in for a penny, in for a pound.

[Monk321654]

Is this Real Life, DF, or both?

[wierd]

Real life.

complimentary wikipedia entry

Giant versions of vermin creatures often lack child, pet, trainable, etc... tags.  Adding canlearn to jumping spiders seems reasonable.

[Niyazov]

Ground hunting spiders are an exception in the arthropoda family.

Many species are smart enough to navigate a maze, and even remember the maze.

A giant version could possibly be very intelligent indeed. Just slap the [canlearn] tag on. Already slapping [trainable], [pet], and [child], so in for a penny, in for a pound.

Jumping spiders have one of the highest encephalization quotients among invertebrates, comparable to octopi (although as a smaller animal overall jumping spiders are not as intelligent). They also likely have the highest brain-body mass ratio of all animals, as their brains occupy almost their entire cephalothorax. Moreover, in chelicerates a lot of the functions that are handled by the brain stem in vertebrates are handled by autonomous systems distributed through the body, leaving more of that brain mass available for other things (mostly dealing with the input from a visual system that gives them essentially 360 degree vision.) Although on our planet a giant spider could not exist for other reasons, a theoretical giant jumping spider could be a very smart critter indeed.

However one thing that is important to realize about spiders is that they spend most of their time inactive. Jumping spiders are active hunters and spend more time than other invertebrates moving around, but in general a lot of their time is spent in an extremely stimulus-deprived condition. As Charles Elton said, "All cold-blooded animals spend an unexpectedly large proportion of their time doing nothing at all, or at any rate, nothing in particular." As such, jumping spider intelligence is probably of a very different nature than that of a mammalian carnivore, as their intelligence must be employed in very brief, intense bursts rather than all the time.

[NW_Kohaku]

That is the cutest thing I have ever seen come from spider-kind.

Discounting Yamame?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ground hunting spiders are an exception in the arthropoda family.

Many species are smart enough to navigate a maze, and even remember the maze.

A giant version could possibly be very intelligent indeed. Just slap the [canlearn] tag on. Already slapping [trainable], [pet], and [child], so in for a penny, in for a pound.

Jumping spiders have one of the highest encephalization quotients among invertebrates, comparable to octopi (although as a smaller animal overall jumping spiders are not as intelligent). They also likely have the highest brain-body mass ratio of all animals, as their brains occupy almost their entire cephalothorax. Moreover, in chelicerates a lot of the functions that are handled by the brain stem in vertebrates are handled by autonomous systems distributed through the body, leaving more of that brain mass available for other things (mostly dealing with the input from a visual system that gives them esssentially 360 degree vision. Although on our planet a giant spider could not exist for other reasons, a giant jumping spider could be a very smart critter indeed.

However one thing that is important to realize about spiders is that they spend most of their time inactive. Jumping spiders are active hunters and spend more time than other invertebrates moving around, but in general a lot of their time is spent in an extremely stimulus-deprived condition. As Charles Elton said, "All cold-blooded animals spend an unexpectedly large proportion of their time doing nothing at all, or at any rate, nothing in particular." As such, jumping spider intelligence is probably of a very different nature than that of a mammalian carnivore, as their intelligence must be employed in very brief, intense bursts rather than all the time.

They also have the best eyesight of any invertebrate, and that whole "translating colors into meaningful data" thing takes tremendous processor power.  A likely overwhelming portion of their brains are likely devoted to the sense of sight.

Of course, that said, they should, at the very least, be more trainable than a crocodile, which counts as a mount in this game.

[Loud Whispers]

Yet more reasons why I bloody love spiders.

[ASCIt]

Spiders are cool. Once, I fell asleep with one sitting right over my head, on my ceiling. I like to think that (s)he was guarding me from teh monstorz.

[Monk321654]

I still don't know why most people are so afraid of our Arachnid Friends.
Although probably the only reason they don't activally try to kill US is because we're so much bigger.

[Niyazov]

I still don't know why most people are so afraid of our Arachnid Friends.
Although probably the only reason they don't activally try to kill US is because we're so much bigger.

[NW_Kohaku]

I still don't know why most people are so afraid of our Arachnid Friends.
Although probably the only reason they don't activally try to kill US is because we're so much bigger.

Yeah, pretty much.  Many of the orb-weavers are so nearly blind and hard-wired for predatory behavior that their mating dances are not so much to get females in the mood or prove a male's fitness as it is to just say "I'm one of your own kind, please don't eat me."  And even then, the males tend to bring along snacks to distract the female with while they get in and get out as fast as possible. 

But on the plus side, the overwhelming majority of spiders use neurotoxins that are essentially useless against humans, and some scientists believe may actually have theraputic benefits.  Not so much because humans are immune as it is because spiders have dosages of nervous system-paralyzing venom designed to take down a nervous system the size of a grain of sand, and our brains are about a hundred times more massive than their entire body. 

To a spider's perspective, attacking a human is like attacking a mountain that will get angry at you and attack back.  It's something you just don't want to do.

Plus they eat mosquitos and mites that would otherwise be parasites on humans, and they eat crop-ruining pests, so spiders in real life are overall beneficial to humans.

That said, magically GIANT spiders are gonna eat ya.

Plus, the brown recluse is a type of spider that doesn't use one of those paralytic venoms, and it was added into the game because it's got a right nasty bite that basically just causes extreme freakin' pain.