Wildlife

Spiders don’t really need any help in the creepy department, as the ten featured on this list attest. Nor do they need myths or horror stories to make them scarier. But that doesn’t stop people from trying.

Take the popular story children tell each other: A spider drops down from the ceiling at night, one tiny black mass hanging precariously from a nearly-invisible thread. Its target? The gaping mouth of an unsuspecting, snoring child. That’s how one person eats at least 15 spiders a night, the legend goes.

Except no matter how many times we tell each other the tale, it’s still not true, says Richard Bradley, an associate professor emeritus at Ohio State University and president-elect of the American Arachnological Society.

“Some people have been working on this, trying to disprove it by forcing spiders to go into people’s mouths, and they won’t do it,” Bradley says. “If you were in the center of a huge monster several hundred times larger than you, would you want to go into its mouth?”

Bradley, author of Common Spiders of North America, is one of many professional and novice arachnologists in the country studying the planet’s eight-legged critters and working to dispel popular myths. Most lesions, sores and bites, for example, are blamed on spiders but caused by either an insect or even a flesh-eating bacteria, he says.

But no matter how many times researchers explain that spiders don’t seek out small children to carry away to their webs, deep-rooted fears remain.

In honor of a season full of heebie-jeebies and creepy crawlies, the Cool Green Science blog asked Bradley and U.S. arachnologists for the country’s most interesting, notable or just plain creepy spiders.

Below are the top 10. And for those who just can’t get enough furry legs, googly eyes and impressive fangs, we’ve included an extra one at the end — what is considered the Bigfoot of the spider world.