Spiders on Drugs

Cleaning out a closet I came upon a book I had not looked it in years, a Time-Life volume on Animal Behavior, written by the great ethologist Niko Tinbergen, first published in (and this is very important) 1965.

I immediately checked out a couple of pages from the book I remembered very well: a report (with photos) of an experiment by a pharmacologist (Peter Witt) who gave spiders a variety of drugs in order to test their webslinging under the influence.

Here's a normal web, efficient but flawed.



Here's the work of a spider on a Benzedrinish stimulant. The result: "the sider [is] too impatient to circle the center . . . [and] spins only in one small area.



A chloral hydrated spider (chloral hydrate is the classic "Mickey Finn") just falls asleep and leaves its work, as you can see below, undone.



On the other hand. a fully caffeinated "arachnid . . . [spins] a haphazard tangle of threads." A bit jumpy, don't you think?



Now consider this last, largest photo. What drug is this eight-legged on? The answer is below the photo.



The spider that spun this "perfect web, greatly improving on nature" was tripping his head off. LSD "induce[d] acute concentration" in the webmaster.

In the Sixties even the spider were doing acid!