WHY DOES EVERYONE MESS THIS UP?! Spider is not an Insect!

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Okay, quick question. How many legs does a spider have?

[00:00:06]If you said six, like there is on this old spider brush that I have here, then I regret to inform you that you've been living in the lie because spiders are not insects.

[00:00:25]I wanted to make this video for such a long time, man. What originally inspired me was this clip that I saved like 5 years ago.

[00:00:32]>> Okay. Forbidden Oreo.

[00:00:35]Oh, I will make sure every last insect will be destroyed. My dear Mr. Felix Shelberg, being scared of spiders is acceptable. Wanting to eradicate them all is ignorant but understandable. But categorizing them wrong as insects, how dare you? Now you cross the line.

[00:00:58]Anyway, let's break it down. Insects like ants, bees, flies, they have three main body parts. They have head, thorax, and abdomen. And they have six legs.

[00:01:09]While spiders, they are totally different. They got two body parts. They have eight legs and they have zero interest in being lumped with insects.

[00:01:18]Um, just a second. We need a visual representation. Let's go out.

[00:01:25]We need to find one ant. And I see them right here. They will be the best example. Now you can clearly see head that is red. That middle section that's the thorax and the back section that's the abdomen. And if you count the legs one, two, three, you can see three on one side, three on the other side. And also then they have antenna. You see that is a proper insect. Also these are insects but it is not super clear with them. You can clearly see that they have one, two, three legs on one side and three on the other side. But the three segments are not so clear. You need to know exactly what you are looking for. I will show you on roaches inside. But first let me just show you one quick thing. It is not an insect but someone who just woke up from the hibernation but currently is asleep. This is Kcho.

[00:02:15]Let's just show him quickly. Hopefully he won't mind. Hey, Kito. Good morning.

[00:02:20]Did I awake you? Yeah, just look how big she is. The original Dark Den viewers will remember how tiny he was when I got him like 9 years ago or 10 years ago.

[00:02:32]And look, this is an insect on his back or actually two insects doing some haba time, huh? That is not really PG-13. But anyway, yeah, for all of you that were wondering where is Kra and if he's still with us, here he is. And yeah, originally his name was eight, but my daughter renamed him to Kicher. So, for past 2 years, we've been calling him Kicher. Uh, back to the dan. I recently did some remodeling. So, my main colonies are here while the other colonies are here. And we of course need the biggest roaches. And one is right over there. So, quick grabbish grabbish.

[00:03:08]And we got ourselves a roach. I just realized that it is even less clear with these roaches but we will manage. So this is our roach and looking from the top you cannot really see the segments but if you look underneath this is obviously the head this is the abdomen and the middle section in between from which the legs are coming from that is the thorax and legs are always coming from the thorax not from the head and not from the abdomen but there is no clear separation between abdomen and thorax like there is with ants. Anyway, let's now check out the spider or more specifically a tarantula. Sashanka should be the perfect example and she is actually placed ideally where maybe I can just grab her. I don't really practice this often, but there is a technically safe way to grab a tarantula. Well, not every tarantula, but the ones that are a bit more chill like she is. You just go over tarantula and you just squeeze her a bit like that. Then with your two fingers, grab her on the side just like that. But as I said, it only works if tarantula is chill like she is.

[00:04:15]So here we go. This is our tarantula.

[00:04:18]Our real spider where you can see all the segments. So two segments carropase.

[00:04:23]Actually I think that there is a different different terminology that I cannot really remember but yeah two segments carropase abdomen four legs on one side four legs on the other side.

[00:04:34]Spiders belong to a group called arachnids, which sounds like a superhero faction, but it's just a fancy terminology for animals like spiders, scorpions, mites, and ticks. Yeah, ticks. Basically, the weird and fascinating squad. And if you're not really familiar with tarantulas, you might be looking at this now and thinking, "Wait a minute, doesn't this girl have 10 legs?" Because we can count like 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 and then you have nine and 10. Some small legs here in front, right? Well, it does look like that, but these are in fact petty pops.

[00:05:11]Petty pops are these small appendages and they are right next to their mouths.

[00:05:16]Something like tiny arms or fillers.

[00:05:20]Let's get her back to her enclosure. So, just this finger. Boink. You squeeze it on the side. And there we go. Okay, back you go.

[00:05:30]Sorry for messing with you. So, petty pulps help spiders to sense the environment through touch, the vibrations, and they also handle the food with them. And while they are super obvious on tarantulas because they are almost as large as legs, they are not as obvious on other spiders, but all spiders got them. Here I have one small orb weaver and one big jumping spider.

[00:05:52]So, let me first show you on the orb weaver.

[00:05:56]Here's the spider, but I think that I will need a macro lens to show you exactly. I'll bring it to the table because there's more light and those are better conditions for the macro lens.

[00:06:08]There we go. Now, when you compare them with their legs, they are super tiny, but they are still present. And unfortunately, when I open the door, I kind of destroyed its web. So, it is now trying to rebuild it.

[00:06:23]Or maybe not. We can no longer see the pet pops. I'll try it on the side. There we go. Now you can see it. These things are the pet popups. Let me show you the jumping spiders. While that orb is a baby and it will grow much bigger. Here I have an an adult jumping spider that is actually one of the biggest species in the world. And now she just turned.

[00:06:45]Okay. Okay, there we go. When you are this close, it is super obvious. Come on, stop turning on the other side, please. The camera is right here. Boink, boink, boink. Okay, if you don't want to turn, I can turn the entire enclosure.

[00:07:00]Not a problem. She's even doing something with them. You see, they look like tiny arms. And now, of course, she will turn the other way. Almost as if she's intentionally messing with me.

[00:07:10]Stop doing that. In case you wonder, her name is Bonnie. And she's a fipus reus jumping spider. Oh, it looks like she's cleaning her fangs. You see? Oh, and eyes.

[00:07:25]This is such a lovely clip. Ooh, look how close we are. This is an amazing clip. I'm loving it. Right. Okay. And petty pulps got another really, really important purpose, but only for male spiders. I will bring you one male tarantula and then you will see if I will be able to show you. That's the question. So, this is a male tarantula and there is a high chance that he'll freak out. Or maybe not. Are you actually a chillbro? He's actually kind of old, so he's probably on his last leg now.

[00:07:59]H yeah, you can climb up. That is acceptable. Now, look at his petty pops from here. They look completely normal.

[00:08:06]But when you look from the side, you can see that the tip of his pedops is different. There is something going on over there. That is because in male spiders, petty pulps are specially adapted for the reproduction and you cannot really you cannot really see it that well. I will grab another male. No, no, no, no, no. Go back inside. I think that I have better example. Oh, yeah.

[00:08:30]And he's right there on the glass. Look, you see how chunky his petty pops are?

[00:08:35]Yeah. How often you will hear the term boxing gloves because male spiders petty pops looks almost as if they got a boxing gloves on, right? So chunky.

[00:08:46]Regular pett. The tip of the pedop just looks like just like a normal leg.

[00:08:51]Nothing special. Male spiders actually use petty pulps to transfer sperm to female. Yeah, you heard that right.

[00:08:58]Spider sexy time is super weird. Not only that the male is in constant fear and danger that he will be eaten, but he also needs to lift the female and then crawl under her. I have a plenty of breeding videos. So, if you never seen it, uh if I don't forget, I will link it in the description. So, check it out. It is something to be seen. Now, let's talk about their most iconic feature, their silk. Spiders produce silk from organs called spinets. And there isn't just one type of silk. They produce multiple kinds each for a different job. There is a single line silk that for example or wevers use to make those big webs. Also spiders will often use it to make like a safety line like jumping spiders or other huntsman spiders. Also or wevers have it. You probably seen it where when a spider just drops down on a single line of silk. That is a safety line. But for example when a jumping spider is walking and when he jumps he will always have a safety line attached. But when a spider catches a prey, he will have a thick and white type of silk that he uses to cover the entire prey. Also, let me show you. When it comes to tarantulas, you have some species that are heavy webbers like this one or these balfuris, they cover their entire enclosure with web. But not all tarantulas are like that. If we look here, this is Linda's enclosure and there is no web. But if we touch this dirt in front of her hide, you can see that it is like connected. That is because it is covered with web and it is actually connected with web. This way Linda can feel the movement in front of her hide and she can feel when the prey approaches to jump out and grab it. But she figured out that this is not a prey.

[00:10:43]And spider silk is insanely strong, stronger than steel for its weight. That is at least a fact that is commonly repeated. Although it makes me wonder why we don't then use the spider silk to make stuff if it is so strong. Who knows? Maybe that is also just a common myth. And those tarantulas that don't really web, they will make a thick web blair when they are molting. Oh yeah, if spiders weren't weird enough already, listen to how they grow on the outside.

[00:11:11]Spiders have exoskeleton that doesn't grow. So what they do? They will generate new exoskeleton that is compressed and squished on the inside and then they will pull out of that old exoskeleton, spread, expand and slowly harden that new exoskeleton. It is a fascinating thing because you end up with a copy of the original spider. You see, this is just an empty exoskeleton.

[00:11:38]I have a this thing and people will often think that those are dead tarantulas, dead spiders, but no, those are just empty exoskeletons. Look, there are even fangs on it. Also, they make an exac out of the web. You see, this is an empty exac, but this is all made out of silk. It is a fascinating process.

[00:12:01]Everything about spiders is fascinating.

[00:12:03]And despite their reputation, spiders are incredibly useful. They control insect population. They reduce pests in your home. They help keep ecosystem balanced. Basically, they are free pest control with zero subscription fee. So to all people that feel an incredible urge to burn them all with fire, you would quickly regret that decision after we would get overrun with actual insects. So, next time you see a spider, don't panic or just you can panic a little bit, but be aware that world is a better place because of those spiders and you and me both need them directly or indirectly. That's it. I think that I said everything that I wanted to say on this topic. This video is not really meant for my regular viewers. All of you that are watching me regularly know all this stuff, at least majority of this stuff, and you like spiders and you know how good they are. But there is a lot of people that have no idea. So hopefully this video can help educate them. So if you have someone that doesn't like spiders or doesn't know the difference between spiders and insects, send them this video. If you liked it, make sure to thumbs it up and comment something.

[00:13:09]If you want to support this channel more, there's a Patreon page and also a web shop page with merch and enclosures and other stuff. If you're new to this channel, make sure to subscribe up every Monday and sometimes a live stream on Sunday. So see you again really soon.

[00:13:22]Black.