Photo Courtesy of the Milwaukee Public Museum
For most of us, spiders aren’t pleasant company. They swarm about on four legs too many, leave webs in the corners of our rooms and suck our blood at night in our beds.
Photo Courtesy of the Milwaukee Public Museum
However, the organizers of the Milwaukee Public Museum’s new exhibit, “Spiders Alive!” hope to dispel at least some of those impressions.
According to the exhibit’s curator Jon Bertolas, the arachnids are victims of “misconceptions and misinformation.” All those irritating (potentially deadly) spider bites? “Many are misidentified and are actually bites from bed bugs and mites. There’s also misinformation about the level of concern over the potency of the venom,” he says.
“Spiders Alive!” is largely a living exhibit featuring 17 species safely housed in terrariums whose interiors replicate their preferred natural habitats. The information panels tell viewers at a glance where the species live and identify their characteristics. Each panel also poses a question: “Should You Worry?” From a spider called the huntsman, the venom is mild, “causing local pain only.” What about the formidable sounding desert hairy scorpion? “Painful to humans, but not deadly.”
Spiders have inhabited the Earth for 300 million years, predating dinosaurs as well as humans. “Spiders Alive!” includes a relatively recent fossil specimen only 100 million years old. Along with the displays of living and fossilized arachnids, another facet of “Spiders Alive!” are education stations that challenge visitors to make their own webs from colored yarn anchored to asymmetrical pegs on wooden frames.
The takeaway is that spider webs are among the most incredible artifacts of the natural world. Elastic and resilient, they can hold objects as heavy as baseballs or ball bearings. Contemporary researchers are trying to genetically engineer the spiders’ silken material for use in skin grafts and bandages. The configuration of webs suggests new ways of wiring and their strength has engineering implications for building storm- and earthquake-resistant structures.
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Here’s another surprise: Some species don’t spin webs and others produce silken threads only as escape lines.
OK, most spiders aren’t deadly; yet, shouldn’t we be wary just in case? “In Wisconsin, there’s not a lot to worry about,” Bertolas says. Only the northern black widow at the remote fringes of the Badger State is dangerous. He adds that most spiders “are not aggressive. They want to retreat when they encounter us. We are much more intimidating to them than they should be to us.”
Through Jan. 12 at the Milwaukee Public Museum, 800 W. Wells St. For more information. visit mpm.edu.
