dRMM's House for a Deaf Child has an exterior with adjustable pieces to give color expression on the outside and control of light and views from the inside. Image: Thomas Butler Massive Headline FAIL at the Daily Star.

If you don't follow UK news, you might have missed the entire island going completely bonkers over an invasive spider species. The False Widow Spider, Steatoda nobilis, was introduced to England about 100 years ago from the Canary Islands.

I'm not entirely sure why, but the British media suddenly decided that these little cobweb spiders are terrifying. After a month of frenzied headlines, a school was actually closed due to spiders this week.

Really. Dean Academy completely shut down because of suspected False Widow spiders found in an IT classroom. The entire school will be fumigated, and all athletic events are cancelled.

It's difficult to convey why this is so incredibly silly without using a lot of four letter words, arm waving, and spittle. These spiders are NOT that dangerous. Headlines have used words like "rampaging killer spiders" and "flesh-eating," but those claims are ridiculous and false.

These little spiders are related to black widows, but other than genetics and web structure, that's about the end of the resemblance. They do not have venom that dissolves your flesh. They are not "flesh eating," unless you are a fly or a cricket. They can't "kill humans with a single bite!"; and there is NO record of their ever having killed anyone in the UK (or elsewhere, best as I can tell).

The headline above claiming there were "50 spiders racing" towards a mom is bogus. I don't doubt that the woman in the headline above felt like there were 50 spiders charging at her, but that isn't how these spiders work. This species is described as "notably sluggish, ponderous, solitary and non-aggressive." They don't live in groups or nests, they don't hunt communally, and if you tried to make them charge someone, they would collapse. Spiders simply don't have a respiratory system built for racing around after prey, much less terrified humans.

Why is there so much hype about these spiders?

Bogus map of "Spider Invasion" from the Daily Star.

This "Attack of the Spiders!" graph suggests spiders are practically storming the beaches from Normandy. Perhaps that is tiny Spider General Rommel in the photo?

Compare that map with this graph from a UK Natural History survey project, and it becomes clear this graphic has no connection to real, biological data.

It's not just me that thinks the UK media coverage is over the top; the British Arachnological Society said:

*The media hype about 'false widows' (by which presumably Steatoda nobilis is meant) is beyond reason and irresponsible....Everybody in the coastal counties of Southern England has had lots of them in their house and garden for many years, whether they have been aware of this or not. They are now one of our commonest southern house and garden spiders. The fact that harm caused by them is very rare should tell you something about how dangerous they really are. *

So, there are lots of people and the media freaking out about spiders. And there are Arachnologists and people like me (insect pundits?) that are trying to get people to calm down and tell them a bunch of facts.

Guess which side is winning.

__Hey, Ms. Pot Kettle. This article's headline is pretty alarmist too! __

It's easy to write a story about spiders that will make lots of people share it. Many folks are afraid of spiders. Spiders regularly lead top 10 lists of human fears. But that doesn't mean it's ethical to play on those fears for page views. And that is why I hesitate to tell you that yes, you ARE probably near a spider, right now.

The "6 feet from a spider" saying is a bit of folk wisdom that actually has some truth to it. Want to fumigate an entire school for spiders? Great, go ahead. Within a week you will have plenty of spiders again. You can try to kill them, but they will come back. There is no such thing as "spider-proof" in a living, biological world.

Spiders aren't invading our space because they like seeing us scream and freak out. They are just trying to make a living, and our homes happen to be places that are nice to live in. Heck, that's why WE live there. It's warm, it's sheltered from extreme weather, and lots of other little animals are there for spiders to eat.

All those stories you see of "ZOMG it bit me and my leg fell off!11!"? Yeah. Highly unlikely. Spiders just take the fall for a whole host of other things that cause skin and circulatory problems because humans love to hate spiders. There just isn't any data that backs up rampaging spiders attacking humans in either Europe or North America. Only about 4% of people seeking treatment for spider bites....actually have confirmed spider bites.

Six Feet? From a Spider? Right now? REALLY?

Yes. Really. A classic review of spiders from 1973 begins with this sentence:

"Where any form of terrestrial life exists it is safe to assume there will be spiders living close by."

Spiders are common and all around you. In a survey of 33 different spider density estimates in that paper, ranges from 3 to 384 spiders per square meter was common. (I'd tell you the high estimates, but some of you might pass out.)

The UK freak-out over spiders is especially ironic since much early research on spider population density came from Britain. In classic work from 1958, Bristow estimated that there were about 2 million spiders/acre in a Sussex meadow, or a quite modest 49 spiders per square meter.

Now, about half of the readers of this article are going to need a little lie down after reading this. For those of you that are still with me, spider density varies widely depending on habitat. For example, estimated spider density in the Pacific northwest forest ranged from 6 to 10 spiders per square meter; that is about 40,461 spiders per acre.

Certainly, there is a difference between indoors and outdoors; and cultivated and wild habitats. One thing is quite clear, though: Spiders are here to stay, despite our best efforts. So there probably is a spider near you, right now. And you can't see it, and it's avoiding you.

If you're afraid of spiders, my telling you all of this isn't going to change much, and that's ok. But do know that stories of death and dismemberment due to spider bites are not based on facts, and usually media hype along the lines of this bad reporting from the UK. If you are going to worry, worry about driving in a car, guns, or accidental poisoning, all of which are statistically more dangerous and real threats to your health and welfare.

Think you killed all your spiders? It's unlikely, but you might have. Temporarily. We know thatsheetweb spiders can travel kilometers for a new home, and you might have seen the news that Houston was covered with spiders this year. Spiders travel by ballooning on the wind in beautiful ways.

I'll let E.B White, author of Charlotte's Web, have the final say here in a lovely letter describing how he came to write his book about a heroic spider mother. Spiders are part of nature: