Spider vs. Your Friendly Neighbourhood Web Slinger

April 1, 2021   12:00 pm IST

   Spiderman is no doubt the most popular superhero in the Marvel arsenal. With over 8 big screen featurettes, and countless games and TV series, and his many affiliations to other superhero gangs from the mighty Avengers to the Fantastic 4, spider-man really is what you would call a cultural phenomenon.

It’s hard to fathom but all the amazing powers that the fictional superhero possesses are inspired by a real-life species of the arachnids, you guessed it: the spider! What makes him a hero is nothing but a radioactive spider, no matter which iteration from the comics you pick up (1).

It is portrayed in the comics that spider-man has to constantly pull back on his punches to not kill the street thugs of New York as he is so powerful that a single blow can rip a fist-sized hole in a regular human’s chest. Well, it is hard to surmise but spiders too are equipped with eight instead of just four of these power-packed limbs that can lift 250 times greater weights than a regular human being if you compare body proportions, also they can make long leaps up to 50 times their own length (2). Beware spider-man! All this is possible through a mechanism in the spider’s muscles that forces a liquid from its body to its legs that thrusts the little guy into the air.

We all know and love spidey because of the quirky ways he uses his webs, but none of that even compares to how the real spiders use the natural thread coming out of their posterior. A spider uses its silk to create traps to capture other insects for food, to create a safe space for itself, to hang itself (3) from the roof and lower itself down like Ethan Hunt, to sail across seas by using it as a paraglide, and much more. Oh and not to mention, spider silk is stronger than steel!

You remember when Peter got the “Peter Tingle” on his school bus when the children of Thanos came to Earth in Avengers: Infinity War to steal a necklace from a wizard? The same thing that helped him defeat Mysterio? Yeah, real spiders can do that too, and turns out it makes a lot more sense once you know that they use their many eyes and incredibly sensitive hair that wraps around their body to sense the danger around by sensing the vibrations through these little hair, along with tiny slits that are present all over their body (4). The vibration tells the spider about the probable situation and prepares it in order to tackle that danger.

But before we wrap up, let’s talk about the first power that Peter discovers every time he is bitten by a radioactive spider: sticking to stuff. Only the OG Spider-man showed us the disgusting little pointy hair tips on his fingers that helped him achieve this miraculous feat. Spiders too have hairs on their tips aided by an additional microscopic organ that can stick and fit in the small crevices in the irregularities of all stuff. Yup, there are cracks and holes even in the smoothest of things, even your precious glowing skin.

So the next time you see a spider, try to take a moment to appreciate the beauty and complexity of this wonderful arachnid and how nature has shaped and provided it with all these marvelous gifts before you freak out and start jumping around like an idiot.

References:

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• Fandom  

• National wildlife federation  

• National geographic  

• Smithsonian Education