drugged spiders

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Following yesterday's orb-weaver story, perhaps today's post falls under the heading, "Did someone really do this?"

Karen Sue found this report in "The Handy Bug Answer Book" by Dr. Gilbert Waldbauer. It seems that orb-weaver spiders fed a high dose of caffeine weave webs that are barely recognizable, little more than irregular triangles of silk that couldn't possible catch an insect. (Spiders that live at Starbucks, be forewarned.)

But wait there's more.


Spiders enticed to ingest the hallucinogenic drug mescaline, made from the peyote cactus, build webs that are smaller than normal and that have abnormally variable angles. While spiders fed LSD waste extra time building abnormally neat but regular webs that would catch no more insects than webs built by spiders that are not stoned out of their little arachnid minds. (I wonder: Do they have hallucinations of tiny little people crawling up melting walls?)

What did counterculture drug advocate Timothy Leary say, "Turn on. Tune in. Drop out. Spin away."

Now, if you are like me, you only have one question: Who in the world would devise such tests?

Do you think it might be college biology students with a little extra time on their hands? And a good source for coffee and popular 1960s' drugs.

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