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t1_iy7r2nd wrote

Early mammals were probably insectivores, spiders were lunch.

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t1_iy8dhp0 wrote

Spiders were the size of dogs

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t1_iy8nxtw wrote

Actually spiders never really got that big, as far as we are aware.

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t1_iy8ooif wrote

Interesting. We know for sure that scorpions, dragonflies, and certain worm types were hundreds of times larger than today's species.

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t1_iy9i0uz wrote

Well, that was maybe 250 mln years ago, and mammals only appeared maybe 80-100 mil years ago, when insects were already closer to today in size

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t1_iy9l5uj wrote

Weren't they micro fauna initially? Like prey to pretty much anything?

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t1_iy9lwgt wrote

Afaik, the first proto-mammals were therapsids, which were not that small. However, most mammals (or all?) I can't remember - came from rodent-like creatures after the cretaceous extinction event 65 mil ago. But that time insects were definitely even smaller...

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t1_iy8r5wp wrote

No they weren’t

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t1_iy8tlwa wrote

I didn't say they were out of the water. The largest pre-spider on record was around 22 inches. Bout the size of my dog.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megarachne

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t1_iy8v0zj wrote

That is an aquatic arthropod. Not a spider. So again, No.

The very first sentence in the article you linked: “If the original identification as a spider had been correct, Megarachne would have been the largest known spider to have ever lived.” (Bolding mine)

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t1_iy8wtd7 wrote

Everything came from water.

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t1_iy8xdh8 wrote

Very good. You get a gold star. That doesn’t mean the largest prehistoric spider was 22 inches. By your “logic” the largest chicken was 70 feet long.

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t1_iy9cn4l wrote

Mmhmm that's a whole lot of chicken. I wonder how many chicken nuggets we can make out of that?

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t1_iy8xgce wrote

I mean yeah.

Where'd the entomologist go?

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t1_iy9iapp wrote

Monkey and human share common ancestor. Monkey and human closely related. Monkey eat banana, monkey have opposable thumbs and hands. Human eat banana, human have opposable thumbs and hands. Monkey and human looks similar, but monkey and human not the same. Monkey not human, human not monkey.

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t1_iy9a7pu wrote

Kind of doubt that. With just as many sources as you have provided, I imagine our instinctive fear of spiders comes from some evolutionary factors.

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t1_iyanj71 wrote

perhaps a more recent thing, like our fear of snakes. Big, clearly dangerous animals, with pointy teeth, like wolves and bears, we're just afraid of on principle. Wee venomous things, like snakes and spiders, prehaps we needed an instinctive fear of.

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