Evil Animals - Spiders

Summary

Comedy of the Week — Evil Animals: Spiders

Host: Russell Kane (A)
Guests: Professor Karim Vahed (entomologist, C), Comedian Josh Jones (B)
Date: February 23, 2026
Episode Theme: Spiders — Evil or Genius?

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Main Theme Overview

This lively episode of "Evil Animals" (Comedy of the Week, BBC Radio 4) tackles the divisive subject of spiders—creatures that induce fear, fascination, and plenty of mythology. Host Russell Kane and his guests, spider expert Professor Karim Vahed and comedian Josh Jones, set out to explore whether spiders are "evil" or "genius," blending genuine scientific insight with a hefty dose of irreverent comedy. An audience poll and a trio of themed discussion "envelopes" drive the show.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. First Encounters — Favourite Spiders and Pop Culture (01:49–05:01)

• Opening Banter:
  Russell introduces the theme with a playful dig at spiders’ reputation for inducing panic, setting a comedic tone.

• Favourite Spider:

  • Josh (B) [01:54]: Admits liking Rosie, the black widow from "Bug's Life." Despite her dangerous reputation, Josh comments, “She came across really warm in the film.”
  • Karim (C) [02:22]: Shares he stuffed his pet tarantula, Boris, after he died, showing off both the spider and its moulted baby “skin.” “It's like keeping baby clothes grown up, son,” jokes Josh (B) [02:46].
  • Escaped Spider Story:
    Boris once escaped and was rediscovered “on the television” during a nature documentary [03:08–03:21].

• Fun Spider Facts:

  • 53,000 spider species exist, everywhere except Antarctica [03:55].
  • All spiders produce silk; most have eight eyes; wield superpowers like vibration-detecting hairs (Trichobothria) [05:01–05:25].

Notable Quotes:

• Russell (A) [00:10]: “I am Russell Kane and this is Evil Animals, the bastard love child of Evil Genius and David Attenborough’s Planet Earth. But without the gentle narration, fewer drone shots and 90% more screaming.”
• Karim (C) [02:32]: “A South American salmon pink tarantula. ... I stuffed him after he died.”

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2. Spider Superpowers — Sensory Skills and Silk (05:01–06:52)

• Sensory Hairs:
  Karim explains spiders’ “hearing hairs” (Trichobothria), which detect even minute air movements [05:01].
• Silk Decoration:
  Josh marvels at how spiders “can make a house dead quick”—if he had a spider power, it’d be the decorating skill [05:41–05:57].

Memorable Moments:

• Russell (A) [05:25]: “Why are granddads so at hearing then? Because they got the hairiest ears. See, nature just doesn't make sense, does it?”

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3. Remarkable Records and Sexual Peculiarities (06:52–08:44)

• Longevity:
  The oldest known spider (“number 16”) lived 43 years. Sadly, it was killed by a parasitic wasp [06:52].
• Karim’s Claim to Fame:
  He holds the record for discovering the largest testes (relative to body weight) in the tuberous bush cricket [07:30].
• Sexual Selection:
  Larger testicles are correlated with greater promiscuity in insect species, e.g., bush crickets [08:11].
• Playful Banter:
  Josh jokes about breaking mating records; “I thought you were going to say testes for a minute.”

Notable Quote:

• Karim (C) [07:30]: “If you still google my name and testicles, you can still find it.”

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4. Spiders in Culture & Superstition (08:43–11:14)

• Positive Myths:
  • Lord Spider (“Naru”) creates the universe in Oceanian myth.
  • Hopi honor the “spider grandmother” [08:43].
• European Beliefs:
  Spiders = witches’ companions or plague-fighters [08:43].
• Personal Superstitions:
  Josh avoids walking on “three grids” (manhole covers) and rotated his first cigarette for luck [09:30].
  Karim describes summoning “the jinn” to protect his wife—who then reported a presence stroking her hair [10:28–11:14].

Notable Quote:

• Karim (C) [10:28]: "Islam believes in this parallel world of the jinn… My uncle was famous for his ability to talk to the other side…"

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5. Audience Poll (01:28, 28:51)

• Listeners voted: 61% “genius,” 39% “evil.” Reasons cited ranged from admiration of spiders’ abilities to unease with their predatory practices [29:13–29:50].
• Quotes from listeners:
  • Lynn: “They trap their prey, wrap them up in a web of doom, and then create soup from their insides. In my book, that’s an asshole move.”
  • Andrew: “Imagine if humans behaved like spiders... Females eating the males if they get peckish. It does make you wonder.”

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The Three Spider Envelopes: Structured Debates

Envelope 1: Spider Cooperation & Parental Care (12:24–15:58)

• Social Spiders:
  Sociality has evolved in about 23 spider species; some live in huge colonies (up to 50,000 in one web), cooperating on building, defending, raising young, and hunting [13:23].
• Bagheera kiplingi:
  The only known vegan spider—also social and caring [14:08–14:44].
• Matrophagy:
  Intense parental care: In some species, mothers offer their bodies to be eaten by their babies, digesting their own organs to feed them [15:00–15:58]. “Only a dried up withered husk is left, which is how I feel at the moment,” quips Karim (C).

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Envelope 2: Spiders’ Dubious Dating and Mating Behaviors (16:24–22:56)

• Anatomy and Sex:
  Spiders don’t have penises; males ejaculate onto a “sperm web,” then transfer sperm via their “pedipalps” [16:43–17:33].
• Sexual Cannibalism: Widely practiced in many species—females might eat males for reasons including mate choice (unattractive suitors = lunch) [18:01–18:44].
• Male Strategies:
  • Some males (e.g., Australian redback) somersault into female’s jaws purposely, gaining more copulation time before being eaten [19:15].
  • Bondage: Male crab spiders tie females’ legs during mating; this “mate binding” increases successful copulation [20:08–21:10].
  • Nuptial Gifts: Nursery web spider males wrap an insect in silk, present it as a “gift” to distract females while mating [21:36]. Sometimes they “cheat” by offering empty or half-eaten gifts [22:21–22:45].

Memorable Exchanges:

• Russell (A) [20:12]: “A little gimp mask with eight eye holes.”
• Karim (C) [19:55]: “In the Australian redback spider... males will actually perform a sexual somersault during copulation and flip their abdomens into the female’s mouth, which we've all tried that...”

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Envelope 3: Spider Silk—Super Material (22:58–28:42)

• Strength and Versatility:
  Spider silk is "stronger than steel" for its thickness; spiders can make up to seven different types of silk [23:09].
• Web Uses in Medicine:
  • Historically used for wound healing; scaffolds clotting; naturally antimicrobial and hypoallergenic [25:25–26:11].
  • DIY field medicine? Maybe not, warns Karim—naturally-occurring webs are likely full of bacteria [26:03].
• Industrial Efforts:
  • “Spider goats”: Genetically engineered goats that produce spider silk proteins in milk [27:20].
  • Clothing applications: Spider silk has been developed for ultra-flexible, strong textiles and even bulletproof gear [27:56–28:39].

Notable Quotes:

• Karim (C) [23:09]: “Spider silk really is a super material. You’ve probably heard the anecdote that it’s stronger than steel.”
• Russell (A) [27:01]: “So Jimmy Corbyn’s new party on paper, you would think, wouldn’t you?”

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Final Vote & Reflections (28:42–30:49)

• Audience Poll Recap:
  Spiders declared “genius” by 61% of listeners [28:51].

• Josh’s Verdict (B) [29:50]:
  “I think the genius. I think the genius. I do. I think some people are scared of spiders? ... The ones over here, they can't do anything.”

• Nature vs. Nurture:
  Josh argues that spider fears are “passed on like a football team,” not innate [30:23].

• Karim (C) [30:39]:
  “We need a cultural change. We need, like, spider ambassadors out there to change this inherited phobia thing.”

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Memorable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• Russell (A) [00:10]: “This is Evil Animals, the bastard love child of Evil Genius and David Attenborough’s Planet Earth. But without the gentle narration… and 90% more screaming.”
• Karim (C) [05:01]: “Trichobothria. These are literally called hearing hairs.”
• Josh (B) [05:41]: “They make the webs. ... But it's just the decor...”
• Karim (C) [15:00]: “That is actually the most extreme form of parental care in spiders... the female offers up her own body as food for her offspring.”
• Russell (A) [20:12]: “A little gimp mask with eight eye holes.”
• Karim (C) [23:09]: “Spider silk really is a super material.”
• Karim (C) [27:20]: “They’ve put [spider genes] into goats... Goats produce spider silk proteins in their milk.”
• Josh (B) [30:23]: “It's passed on like a football team. My mum wasn't scared of spiders, so I'm not.”

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Conclusion

By episode’s end, both audience and panel definitively side with “genius.” Spiders emerge as ingenious creators, essential predators, and even models for medical and material marvels—albeit with bizarre and occasionally ghastly personal habits. Warm banter, strange facts, myth-busting, and playful asides keep the tone light, making the world of spiders far less creepy—and far more impressive—than their reputation suggests.

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For newcomers and arachnophobes alike, this episode offers an education in spider lore, science, and comedy in equal measure.

Transcript

[A]

Warning. This episode contains strong language. Animals, Animals.

[B]

Animals.

[A]

Greetings, fly eaters, corner lurkers and daylight avoiding scuttlers. I am Russell Cain and this is Evil Animals, the bastard love child of evil genius and David Attenborough's Planet Earth. But without the gentle narration, fewer drone shots and 90% more screaming. Ah, get off. Which animal are we mostly focusing on today, Russell? I hear you ask. Well, here's some clues. Some species of today's animal loiter in the corner of rooms, using chemicals to communicate. Others hit the dance floor performing courtship dances, hissing and chirping as they rub parts of their bodies together. No, today's subject isn't faliraki lads holiday 2008.

[C]

It's spiders.

[A]

Spiders talents for scuttling and skittering has many of us screeching like banshees. But much like that nerd in your class who secretly had immaculate music taste, there's more to these spindly freaks than meets the eye. Helping me figure out if Webby McGee is evil or genius, I'm joined by a duo more classic and delicious than beans and custard. It's top entomologist Professor Karim Vahed.

[C]

Welcome. Thank you.

[A]

And he wouldn't be able to work through his expertise without the help of brilliant comedian John Josh Jones.

[B]

Hello.

[A]

Proof that sometimes the universe throws together people who would never normally meet unless trapped in a mine shaft. Or discussing spiders on evil Animals and spicing things up. We asked you, the audience, to vote via an online poll. Spiders, evil or genius? We'll find out the result at the end of the show. Josh and Kareem, welcome to Evil Animals.

[C]

Thank you.

[A]

It's great to have you both here. And I have the same question for both of you. What's your favourite spider?

[B]

I really like. So have you seen Bug's Life, the film? There was one called Rosie and she were really nice and it was voiced by Bonnie Hunt. And I thought she were dead lovely. And she were a black widow spider, which I think are quite dangerous.

[C]

I need a bit of positive pr,

[B]

but, yeah, there were quite a few jokes about her killing her husbands. But, yeah, I liked her. She came across really warm in the film.

[A]

Karim, what? Your favorite spider?

[C]

Well, there's a lot of spider species to choose from, about 50,000. But I've chosen Boris because he was my pet and I've actually got Boris here. I stuffed him after he died.

[A]

What?

[C]

A South American salmon pink tarantula.

[B]

There's another spider in the coffin with him.

[C]

Oh, yeah. Well, you see, as spiders grow, they have to Shed their skin. And that was how big he was when I got him.

[B]

So that's his baby skin?

[C]

That's his baby skin. It's like keeping baby clothes grown up, son.

[B]

Little shoes, the first pair of shoes.

[C]

That's it had him for many years. He was brilliant. But when he became adult, he became very restless because male spiders, the main thing they do is search for mates they barely eat. And he actually managed to push the lid off this massive aquarium twice.

[A]

Do we want to know what he pushed it off with the first time?

[C]

He disappeared for two weeks. I didn't tell my missus or anyone else in the household. And then we were watching this nature documentary on telly and I saw this spider. No, I thought, it's a spider on the television, but it was Boris.

[A]

It was a spider on the television

[C]

and we managed to rescue him.

[B]

When you caught him because he was on the telly?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Did he get. Do you know when you put your head on your telly and you get the friction thing and your hair goes up? Did the spider do that?

[C]

Little hairs were standing on end.

[B]

He was there with him a weekend.

[C]

Yeah. And he's quite hairy, I do think,

[B]

is it not a bit sad that that was a spider that you loved and now you just have his corpse? Is that not a bit sad?

[C]

I think it's quite a nice way of remembering someone. I wouldn't mind being sort of mounted, stuffed and stuck on a wall after I die.

[A]

Right. There are roughly 53,000 species of spider worldwide and they're found everywhere except Antarctica. When asked why spiders said, we saw March of the Penguins and it just looked way too harsh. And besides, spider webs look too much like icicles. And we found that level of appropriation really triggering. That was a Gen Z spider. Fun fact. Spiders are arachnids, not insects, which means they don't have antennae and you can't cancel them for insectual harassment. Come on. All spiders have eight legs instead of feelers. Most rock eight eyes in neat little rows, as do all my friends when I've consumed mushrooms. All spiders make silk, but not all bother weaving webs. Luckily, popular superhero Spider man was based on one of the web spinning ones. Otherwise it just would have been a really sad film about a man in a leotard plummeting to his death and then useless silk leaking out of his anus. So, panel eight legs, eight eyes, silk production. If you suddenly woke up as a spider, which power would you use first? Kareem?

[C]

Well, I'm going to throw another one in There another super sense, Trichobothria. These are literally called hearing hairs. And it turns out that the spider's body, as you know, is clothed in hairs. This Boris is pretty hairy. Many of those hairs are specialized. They have specialized sensory pits on them and they're like an amazing receptor for vibrations. So they can detect air currents, even sort of sound borne vibrations.

[B]

Is bit like cat's whiskers.

[C]

Yeah, that's right, because they're like sensitive.

[A]

Why are granddads so at hearing then? Because they got the hairiest ears. See, nature just doesn't make sense, does it? What about you? What superpower would you have, Josh?

[B]

Well, they make the webs.

[A]

That's the actual power.

[B]

I wouldn't want that. But it's just the decor because the way they can make a house dead quick, I think that's dead lovely when

[A]

you about to just squeeze your abdomen and squirt out a conservatory. That's what I want.

[B]

I want to be able to just decorate all the time.

[A]

The largest spider by weight is the Goliath bird eater of northern South America. Hitting 175 grams, it's about the size of a large potato for those of us who think in carbs. In traditional Mexican medicine, powdered Goliath birdeater has been recommended as a cure for asthma. It also mixes well into a guarana milkshake at 4am on the dance floor in Pasha. Don't mix it with blue bottles though. I was shit in silk for a week. Spider lifespans vary w most garden spiders live for around a year. But the world record holder was a trapdoor spider named number 16. Number 16 was part of a long running study started in 1974 by Australian arachnologist Barbara York Main. This female spider lived a staggering 43 years before a parasitic wasp finally did her in. Oh, that's annoying.

[B]

So they kept her safe for all that time and then a wasp came and ruined. I bet she were fuming Barbara when she were livid.

[A]

Well, Barbara was fuming because number 16 lived so long that Barbara couldn't retire. She had to keep the project going into her late 80s. So spiders aren't just long lived, they actually also draft government policy for the retirement ages for women. Turns out spiders are waspies. So like number 16. Kareem, do you hold any records?

[C]

Well actually I do hold a record. I amongst with my colleagues discovered the largest testes in relation to male body weight in the planet about 10 years ago. If you still google my name and testicles, you can still find it.

[A]

Out there on the web in 2007. You can't just leave us hanging, so to speak. Who were the testicles attached to?

[C]

It was the tuberous bush cricket. I was doing a comparative study of the evolution of testes size in bush crickets, as you do, and just happened to happen upon these that were like massive, about 15% of the male's body weight.

[A]

I just wanted to ask as well, is there. There's a correlation, isn't there, between testicle size and how faithful a species is? There certainly is in mammals. So they can tell how monogamous we are as apes because our balls are somewhere in between chimps and gorillas?

[C]

Absolutely.

[A]

Does it hold true for the insect kingdom as well?

[C]

Indeed. In fact, this is partly what we're looking at, the relationship between testes size and how promiscuous the females were. And in fact, the tuberous bush cricket had highly promiscuous females who mated like dozens of times in their lives. About 27 times of the average, I think. So, yeah.

[A]

That's nothing, mate. You need to come to my est, Josh one liner. What world record do you think you could win?

[B]

I think I could beat them for the amount of partners that they.

[C]

I thought you were going to say testes for a minute.

[B]

Mad testes must be quite big.

[C]

And when he rubs his legs together,

[A]

it makes horrible noise. Today, spiders get a bad rap. But historically, many cultures have positively celebrated them. In Oceanian mythology, Naru, the lord spider, created the universe. Similarly, the native American hoppy people honor their spider grandmother, who shaped humans from clay and still offers guidance from her home underground. In medieval Europe, spiders symbolized witchcraft and protection. Some believe that spiders found in a cottage meant a witch lived there. Others thought spiders protected households from plague bearing fleas. And in Essex, any sign of spiders legs means it's time to wax my ass again. Any superstitions you stand by, Josh? Any rituals, folklore obsessions?

[B]

Yeah, well, there was one where I don't like walking on three grids. I don't know what happens.

[A]

What's the three grids?

[B]

Do you know when you get grids together and you get three of them in a row?

[A]

A manhole cover type?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Right, yeah.

[B]

So when you get three.

[A]

Did you find the word manhole too triggering?

[B]

Yeah, that hole in the table's really putting me off. So. Yeah, I've always been told this was at school. You don't walk on free. And when I don't smoke anymore, but I used to always turn my first sig upside down in my packet cuz I was told that that brings you good luck. I don't know about.

[A]

Honestly.

[C]

Up.

[A]

Up where, Josh? I'm married to one of his tribe, and my wife and her family talk to butterflies, imagining they are dead. Relatives come to visit in the garden,

[C]

and if they land on you, it's.

[A]

It's been. Hey, mom, what's it like in heaven? You're right. You got any rituals or obsessions, Cream?

[C]

Well, I come from a Muslim background, and Islam believes in this parallel world of the jinn, which is where the word genie comes from. But they're a world that's meant to be populated by both good and evil. And my uncle was a priest in South Africa, and he was famous for his ability to talk to the other side, to communicate with the jinn. So when I was going away on an expedition once to Malawi for about six weeks, I actually, perhaps unwisely, asked the jinn to protect my wife while she was at home. And I didn't tell her, but when I phoned her up, she said, it's really weird. There's a presence in my room at night, and I keep waking up with a feeling that someone's stroking my hair. So it turns out it was your cousin, but I feel we shouldn't meddle with things we don't understand.

[A]

My nan's exactly the same. She's protected by gin, but she's quite lonely.

[B]

But you could just. If you use the gin again, you could just say, don't be so handsy.

[A]

That's a hat. That must be a 1970s gin you've got there. Looking at our relationships with spiders today, scientists regularly name new species after celebrities. A black tarantula species found near Folsom Prison in California was named Afonopelma Johnny Cashi, a tribute to his song Folsom Prison Blues and his man in Black image. Thank God it wasn't found near a New York prison or would be dealing with Aphonopelma P. Didii. Ah, that sound doesn't mean my wife Lindsay needs new batteries. It's the sound of a purring wolf spider. Which means it's time to go to our first envelope. Our very own spider expert, Professor Karim Varhead, has decided on the envelopes. Kareem, you will then lead in this section, driving the debate forward. But will Karim convince us that spiders are leggy legends or hairy horrors? Josh, I believe you have envelope number one. Yeah.

[B]

Spiders can be surprisingly cooperative and caring.

[A]

Yeah. Our preconceptions, Kareem, of spiders are often driven by fear. We think of them as loners. But are you saying they can be social and collaborative?

[C]

Absolutely. So in two senses of the word. For one thing, you have social spiders and then you have surprisingly touching parental care going on. So, first of all, with social spiders, obviously sociality has evolved time and time again in the animal kingdom. I mean, we ourselves are like a sort of social species living in large aggregations and, you know, cooperating to do amazing things. And about 23 species of spider show this kind of, like, approach to true social behavior. So, for example, there's Anelosemus in South America. They live in a massive web that they all cooperate to build. And this web can be like, five meters across and cover, like, half of a tree.

[A]

See, that's. That's how you do affordable housing.

[B]

Yeah. How many of them are in one web?

[C]

Well, they can be as many as 50,000 in a single web. And so they cooperate in raising offspring, constructing the web, capturing prey. They can take down bigger prey because they all, like, collaborate.

[A]

Oh, what a terrifying way to go.

[C]

Imagine that.

[A]

Well, what are you going to do? Mate one more 49,000 mates run. And do they defend each other collaboratively as well?

[C]

They do. In fact, it has been shown in this Anellosemus species that the larger the colony, the better they are at fending off predators. So there's a lot of cooperation goes on.

[B]

And are they smile. Are they really smile?

[A]

Spike.

[C]

They are quite small.

[A]

They're having nightmares.

[C]

They're not like Boris here. You don't have to worry. You won't get 50,000 of them in one web.

[A]

This is amazingly titled species Bagheera kiplingi. Is that something to do with Rudyard or.

[C]

Yeah. Bagheera kiplingi is also a social spider and they cooperate to protect eggs and look after the spiderlings. But the weird thing about Bagheera kiplingi, which was only, like, named about a decade ago, only discovered to science, is it's the only known vegetarian spider in the world. So not only is it a caring, sharing spider, but it's also vegetarian.

[B]

Vegetarian or vegan? It's not having milk.

[C]

No. Yeah, it's vegan. Isn't it

[B]

vegetarian? I'm like, oh, is it having cheese or whatever?

[C]

Cheese is not on the menu on Channel four. It's a caring vegan spider who loves looking after spiderlings.

[A]

A word that sounds not so caring to me, but I might be wrong, is Matrophagi.

[C]

That is actually the most extreme form of parental care in spiders. So that is actually where the female offers up her own body as Food for her offspring. So I suppose humans get a similar feeling when they pay for their sons to go or daughters to go through university, as I'm doing at the moment. But I mean, basically, classic car, God

[B]

in the garage, you never drive it anyway.

[A]

Kareem.

[C]

But basically what happens in Stegodyphus, a spider from Israel, which is a desert spider, the female starts to digest her own digestive system and vomit it up to feed the developing spiderlings. Not only that, it reaches a certain point where the spiderlings are big enough when she literally digests her whole body, just leaving her ovaries and her heart, and the offspring eat her alive. And so only a dried up withered husk is left, which is how I feel at the moment.

[A]

Do they know they're gonna do that

[B]

before they get pregnant?

[A]

Do they know?

[C]

Yeah, it is a lifetime strategy plan. But that's why they leave their ovaries to last, just in case the offspring get eaten by a predator. One of these predatory wasps, they've got a second chance. They can, like, I don't want to

[B]

sound like a parent, but I'd be like, take them, they're going to kill me.

[A]

I think we should proceed to envelope number two, which has foolishly been put into my hands. Let me just see sweaty palms all over it. And I have. Spiders can have dubious mating behaviors. Now, you've just explained how they cooperate and have a caring side, but you're telling me their love lives are a bit murky.

[C]

Well, I think we shouldn't shame and judge here, really. I don't think we should keep an open mind, open minded, yeah, absolutely. But there are certain idiosyncrasies, shall we say, of spider mating that some people may find a little surprising. For one thing, they don't have a penis as such. The males have to ejaculate onto a sperm web and then they suck it up into the equivalent of their front hands, basically. And so imagine spider anatomy. Spiders are related to scorpions. Scorpions have a front pair of pincers. They're called the pedipalps. Spiders have the same. They're like an extra pair of legs. And you can see in Boris here, these tiny little extra pair of legs either side of the fangs, those are the pedipalps. They've got sperm bulbs on the end. So these are like two secondary penises. They act as sort of hypodermic needles that the male introduces the sperm into the female.

[B]

Do they wee out of their arms as well?

[C]

No. Comes out of.

[A]

Can I, can you just Hold Boris up again.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

How many legs has he got?

[C]

So Boris obviously has the classic spider. 8.

[A]

It looks like 10 legs.

[C]

Exactly. The pedipalps, these structures I'm talking about are like an extra pair of legs.

[B]

Eight legs, two dicks.

[A]

Yeah, I've downloaded that. So we're saying we shouldn't kink. Shame. Tell us about sexual cannibalism.

[C]

Sexual cannibals. So obviously that is one of the preconceptions about spiders. Only the black widow, that the female

[B]

eats the male, we've all wanted to kill an exit.

[C]

It doesn't happen in all species, but it does happen quite regularly throughout the spider world. There are numerous different spider families where the females eat the male. Now, in the battle of the sexes, really, females have got the upper hand in spiders because when a male comes along to a female, there's a big chance he could just end up as lunch. So there are quite a few different hypotheses as to why females eat males. I mean, one is mate choice. That if a particularly sort of unattractive male comes, the female and think, I'll just eat him instead.

[A]

When you say unattractive, what do you mean? Like, he'd have. He wasn't like tall enough or something?

[C]

Yeah, it might.

[B]

Might be one of his willy pincers. Look a bit weird. Bit wonky. Willy pins.

[C]

Yeah. Who knows what a female spider finds most desirable, but small body size. It could be something like that.

[A]

Honestly, it never ends. Toxic masculinity. I'm so sick of it. I bet spider love islands like, he's not tall enough, so I'm gonna have to eat him.

[C]

Exactly.

[A]

Is it as bad as it seems for the males? Because you're playing a bleak picture at the moment.

[C]

So interestingly, males have evolved a whole load of strategies to counteract this sexual cannibalism. So on the one hand, there is some evidence that in a few species it may actually benefit the male to be eaten. So in the Australian red back spider, the famous sort of black widow, it was observed that males will actually perform a sexual somersault during copulation and flip their abdomens into the female's mouth, which we've all tried that which actually results in the female being distracted by eating the male. And the male can carry on copulating for about twice as long, introduce more sperm into these sperm stores and therefore out dilute rival sperm.

[B]

How pathetic are men? I'm gonna put me belly button in your mouth so I can shag you

[A]

for an extra five minutes, even though I'll die.

[C]

It's worth it to get my rocks off.

[A]

Now, I can't believe I'm about to ask this, but are spiders into bondage?

[C]

Indeed. This is another thing, another strategy.

[A]

A little gimp mask with eight eye holes.

[C]

In fact, one of my favourite authors, Bristow, author of the Fabulous World of Spiders, he shocked a vicar. He described one of the first cases of this sort of bondage in the crab spider. And basically the male ties down the female, especially the front of the female, which seems to make it easier for him to lift up the female's abdomen and sneak underneath, get a bit of leverage. And this was so shocking that he actually had a vicar writing reviews that this couldn't possibly happen. I've been studying insects and spiders and there's no such thing as bondage in the spider world. But in fact, we now know that this behavior is actually surprisingly widespread in spiders. Numerous species have some form of mate binding.

[B]

Do they do eight handcuff or do they tie all the eight legs together?

[C]

Yeah, it varies between species. Sometimes it's like they just get the legs in a bunch and bind them all.

[B]

Yeah, that would seem easy.

[C]

Others it's like, like a zigzag that goes right over the female's head. But in the case of the crab spider, it has been shown that males that bind the female in this way do manage to mate for about an hour and a half, which is quite a long time. And it also probably has the added benefit that it's harder for the female to just like, eat him.

[A]

So we heard about the female nursery web spiders, but what do the males get up to then when it comes to romance?

[C]

Well, that's another reason why the nursery web spider is one of my favorites. There's, you know, not only do you have the females doing these amazing nursery webs, but the males offer the females a nuptial gift, which basically, when they detect female sex pheromones in a bit of silk, they'll capture a fly, wrap it elaborately in silk, and then they present it to the female during mating. Now, an early idea was that this was to prevent the male from being eaten, but in fact, we don't think it's so much about avoiding sexual cannibalism. What happens is, while the female's distracted trying to unwrap this gift, the male gets extra time to insert his pedipalps and copulation duration is longer than the larger. The gift you've got.

[A]

He's just the same as us. He's pathetic.

[C]

I've got you these Scoochy shoes, please touch my willie. But what's even more weird is sometimes males cheat and they'll put a really small half dried fly that they'd fed on before in an elaborate silk wrapping

[A]

Harrod's bag with a little scarf in it.

[C]

Studies have shown that these can be just as effective in actually initiating copulation as actual truth.

[A]

She unrips the gift afterwards. You absolute bastard.

[C]

I've been noshing you off for 90 minutes.

[A]

You give me that a dried up fly. Get out of my web. Envelope number three.

[C]

Oh, that's me.

[B]

Right,

[C]

so spider silk has many remarkable uses and can help humans tell us

[A]

about its remarkable properties.

[C]

Well, spider silk really is a super material. You've probably heard the anecdote that it's stronger than steel. Now obviously people have questioned that because you can walk through a spiderweb, but it's a size for size basis. You know, if steel was that thin. Spider silk is actually stronger and it's got an amazing molecular structure. It's made of various types of proteins. Basically it means that it's both strong and flexible. The spiders can actually produce about seven different types of silk from their spinnerets, which I love.

[A]

That sounds like a 1950s music group, ladies and gentlemen. The spinnerets.

[C]

So spiders use this in a variety of ways themselves. You get. One of my favourite actually is something called the bolas spider and it has a single really giant strand of silk that it dangles and on the end of it is a big blob. And in the blob are pheromones that mimic the sex pheromones of the moths that live around the ogre spider. So the moths actually attracted the blob thinking that it's a female moth. And then the bolus spider swings the blob and it's sticky.

[A]

It ends up like Miley Cyrus actually lassoes the moths. There are flying spiders as well, right?

[C]

Yeah, and that's something people are surprised at. How do spiders disperse? Well, they can actually fly. Loads of spiders as spiderlings do this thing called ballooning. So what happens is the spider, when it's fairly recently emerged from its egg, goes into a windy position like the top of the plant and it sticks its abdomen in the air and it starts to spin out a really long thread of silk that gets caught by the wind. And when this thread of silk is long enough and gets caught by enough breeze, it's actually, it lifts the spider up into the air. And spiders have been found thousands of feet above the air drifting and they can go like thousands of miles that

[B]

way, but have they got any? They can't stare, they've got no sort of weather wind, like being in a

[C]

really crap hot air balloon, like steering is sort of at the mercy of the winds.

[A]

That's probably how speciation happened and how we find spiders in diverse places. I would have guessed.

[C]

Well, absolutely. Especially when they land on islands and things and.

[A]

Well, go on then, let's go there. All these amazing uses of spider silk. How does spider silk help humans?

[C]

Being a super material, people have thought for many years about how they can best use it for human benefit. Now, in quite a few traditional medicines going back to medieval times, it was realised that spider cobwebs could actually help wounds scab over. Basically they act as like a scaffold that the red blood cells can clot onto. So that's been investigated quite a lot and it's been found that spiderwebs do actually accelerate clotting.

[A]

Can I ask questions? If we're out on a walk with the family and someone like my daughter did a minor graze on her knee, I could would rip a spider web off a tree and administer some countryside first aid. Or would you not recommend that?

[C]

I probably would recommend it because the webs you find in the countryside be full of manky, half eaten dead insects full of bacteria. So it might not be fake love gifts?

[A]

Potentially.

[C]

Indeed. So yeah, I wouldn't recommend that at home, but it has. There are properties in spider silk. It is actually naturally hypoallergenic and antimicrobial. Spider silk is slightly acidic and that tends to like put off bacteria and microbes from other microbes from growing on it.

[A]

Can we make it? If we can see what it is and see the proteins in it, can we make it? Can we do anything with it?

[C]

Well, this is where fact gets a bit weird. And Spider man, like, because in order to produce silk with industrial uses, you need to have it in volume. And people have tried developing, I like, in the 1800s there was a special spider silk machine developed to try and harvest it from spiders. But it's so time consuming, you need thousands of spiders. The spiders eat each other, they don't get on with each other. It's really hard to extract.

[A]

So Jimmy Corbyn's new party on paper, you would think, wouldn't you?

[C]

So the modern technique is actually to go into the world of transgenics to take spider genes and like I say, this is where he gets very Spider man, get spider genes and splice them into other organisms to actually act as a manufacturing plant, but they put it

[B]

in a bigger animal.

[C]

Well, it's a weird thing. They've put it into goats. A company in America spliced spider DNA into embryonic goats and actually, my God, you were right. Actually produced goats. Goats that produce express spider silk proteins in their milk. So you can simply milk the goats, but then you have to have a purification. It's not like the. The silk comes out of the goat's nipples as like amazing strands of silk. It just comes out as milk. But you have to purify it and then artificially sort of extrude it into artificial silk.

[A]

Wow. And what about in textiles and protective gear and those sort of things?

[C]

Yeah, absolutely. Because like I was saying, it's a super material, stronger than steel, more resilient and flexible than any anything else we know. It's a bit like Kevlar. So there's been a lot of experiments putting into high performance sports clothing, for example. So it's flexible and breathable, but also protective gear. So for example, there's been research about developing bulletproof clothing. And because of its special resilient and tough properties, it turns out it is quite good at stopping bullets.

[B]

So you know, that's such a ranged or bulletproof clothing than a pair of Umbrell trackies.

[C]

Yeah, exactly. But both relying on that flexibility.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Right, well, I think we should start moving towards a vote. Yeah, you've got all the information. Today's investigation of spiders is at an end and it's time to go.

[B]

There.

[A]

Are spiders evil or genius? Now, I can play no part in the decision as I'm the arbiter and Kareem, you brought us all the facts. So, Josh, the decision will be yours. But before you decide side, let's get the result of our online poll. We asked people to vote whether spiders are evil or genius. We shared the top lines of the three envelopes and here's the result. 61% voted genius. 39 evil. Lynn wrote, spiders are they trap their prey, wrap them up in a web of doom, and then create soup from their insides. In my book, that's an asshole move. I think they could be nicer about it. Andrew wrote, spiders are fascinating creatures. Imagine if humans behaved like spiders, walking upside down on any surface, shedding their whole skin in one go. Females eating the males if they get peckish. It does make you wonder. So, Josh, are spiders sweet silk spinners or webby wankers? Are they evil or genius?

[B]

I think the genius. I think the genius. I do. I think some people are scared of spiders? I don't know. But when you think of spiders, you do get a bit reformy because you're like, the foreign ones are the problem because they're the dangerous ones. The ones over here, they can't do anything.

[A]

But so. But how come so many people have, you know, like we. We're born almost to develop a fear of heights. And rightly so. A fear of snakes. And rightly so.

[B]

It's.

[A]

It cannot just be learned. There must be something inherently dodgy to human beings about spiders.

[B]

I think it's passed on like a football team. My mum wasn't scared of spiders, so I'm not. I remember seeing my mum pick them up with her hand and put them outside, so I would do the same thing. So I think if you raised around someone who would pick them up, you'd be all right.

[C]

And I think you're quite right. And I think we need a cultural change. We need, like, spider ambassadors out there to change this inherited phobia thing that's going on.

[B]

There we have it.

[A]

We've decided that spiders are bonafide, benevolent broodlings. All that's left for me to say is thank you to my excellent guests Kareem and Josh, and thank you for listening. Listening. If you want to be notified as soon as new episodes drop, make sure you're subscribed to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds and have push notifications turned on. Oh, there's a spider. Got it.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Sorry, Karim. Bye. Hello, comedy of the week podcast listeners. If you enjoyed listening to that episode of Evil Animals with me, Russell Cain, then you can hear plenty more, including our show on cats, dolphins and hamsters, all on BBC Sounds. You can also hear over a hundred episodes of its sibling show, Evil Genius, where we focus on the Homo sapien heroes and villains in history. To find them both, just search Evil Genius on BBC Sounds.

[D]

Strong message. Here with me, Armando Iannucci, your weekly guide to political language and the people who use and abuse it.

[C]

What are they talking about?

[D]

Yes, we're back building very much on our solid achievements so far, returning with a spinning carousel of co presenters, including Riolina and Stuart Lee.

[C]

People must say this to you all the time.

[A]

It's like something out of the thick

[D]

of it, translating those buzzwords and slogans, investigating whether they're meant to deceive, distract or disturb us.

[A]

It feels like Mad Hatter's tea party,

[D]

helping you spot the verbal tricks of the political trade. Strong message here with me, Amanda Iannucci from BBC Radio 4. Listen now on BBC Sounds.