A woman’s kitchen was filled with mysterious black spots that worried her.
The woman asked the internet community why she still had blackheads in her kitchen. It didn’t occur to her that it might be “spider droppings.” She posted in a Facebook group, “Does anyone have any idea what these points might be?”
“This morning, they started out on the kitchen tiles before moving on to the top of the PC we keep in the kitchen.”
Someone wrote to her, “Look over it and you will probably find a web/spider.”
According to the website Pest Guidance, “spiders” do not leave solid excrement; rather, their excrement is viscous and liquid and resembles the ink stains that frequently appear on walls and other surfaces. Dark splashes or drops are typical to be expected.
These excretions are a mixture of food and leftover substances that the spider’s body excretes.
Spiders are one of many people’s worst fears. More people are alarmed by spiders than by mice, birds, flies, cockroaches, or other health risks.
Most people have the irrational belief that spiders will attack without warning, biting any adults or kids around with their poisonous fangs, resulting in a painful and fatal spider bite.
Even well-informed PMPs have trouble convincing some people that food contamination makes mice, flies, and other indoor pests more dangerous to human health than spiders.
However, some entomologists have questioned whether or not spider droppings are healthy.
Usually while looking at the debris in a container that contains a “pet” spider, such as a black widow spider.
It won’t be long before the “pet” spider’s territory resembles the pavement beneath a bothersome local pigeon colony (which we know is a cause for concern). Is spider poop safe then?
How dangerous is it if one of the typical spider species that are found indoors near ceilings urinates on food, a food prep table, pillows or towels, baby pacifiers or toys, or anything else that might come in touch with a person’s mouth? How dangerous are indoor spiders?
Are Pathogens Found in Spider Droppings?
Staphylococcus spp., Streptococcus spp., Enterococcus spp., Salmonella spp., and E. coli are only a few of the typical human infections that have been found in filth flies.
However, there has been less focus on the microbiological inhabitants of spiders and their droppings. What particularly happens when a spider eats dirt flies?
Is it possible for harmful bacteria to pass the spider and land below it? Is there a reason other than certain people’s fear of spiders for the general population to avoid them indoors?
Melissa Gaver-Wainwright, a graduate student in entomology at Washington State University, started some early research to address these issues.
In order to increase the amount of bacteria in the sample and determine whether black widow spider (Latrodectus Hesperus) waste material may potentially transmit disease, a fecal sample was rubbed from a sterile container and dipped in a growth medium.
She next amplified a conserved region of the 16S rRNA gene using universal bacterial primers to determine the microbes present in the feces. There were no discernible bacteria in the spider poop.
The results were puzzling. Numerous studies suggest that some spiders’ venom (and blood) has antibacterial properties, which may account for the absence of microbes seen. These broad-spectrum antibacterial peptides have been shown to be effective against bacteria including E. coli, Staphylococcus spp., Enterococcus spp., Pseudomonas spp., and others.
There are still many questions, such as whether other web-building spider species also have bacteria-free excrement or whether alternative molecular methods will produce different outcomes.
When it comes to preserving one’s health, controlling flies that carry disease may be more crucial than controlling spiders. On the other hand, spider droppings should not be present indoors.
