How Accurate Are These Animated Pests? — Part 3

We have arrived at the finale of our series on the analysis of animated fictional pests! If you missed the previous two blogs, you can read them here and here. Today’s pest is another realistic (or is it?) depiction of an actual creature that is antagonizing the beloved Belcher family from Bob’s Burgers. Spiders are a common pest across the country because they can survive in all kinds of climates as long as they have a dry shelter, which usually turns out to be our homes. These independent pests don’t like to stay in populated areas of the house if they can help it, as they want to avoid detection at all costs. So what happens when a house spider ends up in the bedroom of the spunkiest Belcher child? Let’s find out as we compare the behavior and actions of this animated spider to our real arachnids!

The Friendly Spider — Bob’s Burgers

 

In season 12’s “The Spider House Rules,” Louise finds a lone spider crawling on the post of her loft bed. She decides the arachnid is a little cute and that it would be kind enough to tell her if it’s of the poisonous variety. After naming it Arachnophoebe — Phoebe for short — Louise convinces Linda not to squish it with a paper towel, but Louise has to then promise that she’ll release Phoebe outside. As it turns out, there are plenty of dangers on the street for a small spider, what with the speedy cars and multiple pedestrians. Louise tries to let Phoebe go by the back dumpsters, but after feeling a surge of empathy for the creature, she sneaks her arachnid back inside and keeps it in a shoebox with some twigs and leaves. Phoebe doesn’t stay in her new home after the kids feed it some live flies, and the evening ends with the whole family having to disassemble Bob and Linda’s bed to release the hidden Phoebe before moving her down to the basement to live out the rest of her days.

It’s entirely possible that finding a spider in the house is the most common pest problem in existence. In this scenario, everyone is either Louise or Linda. Some people prefer to leave house spiders alone and let them provide some natural pest control (Louise), while others don’t like the idea of any creepy-crawly staying in their home (Linda). Most house spiders have never been outside and therefore won’t survive being relocated to the outdoors, so Linda’s “paper towel” method is the most preferable outcome for everyone — well, except for the spider.

Spiders Both Real And Fictional

These are our key observations and analyses from this episode:

• Crawling Down: Louise first spots the spider when it slowly crawls down her bed post, which is realistic spider behavior if we’ve ever seen it. The end of a spider’s legs are equipped with small hairs that have setules, tiny hairs with triangular shapes that allow the spider to grip onto textured surfaces as they crawl around. This is why we see them climbing up walls and furniture with ease.

• Moving Jaws: When Louise tries to leave Phoebe by the dumpster, she has a one-sided conversation with the spider who can only move its jaws in response. These “front fangs” are called chelicerae and are essentially the spider’s muscular jaws. The chelicerae hold the spider’s prey still so the arachnid can inject it with venom before eating.

• Quick Webs: Every time Louise returns to her spider after a short time passes, Phoebe has constructed an impressively intricate web. The sticky strands easily connect to the corners of the bed post and later to the twigs that Louise placed in the shoebox. Real spiders are also speedy spinners, as they only take 30 to 60 minutes to build a web. Some species even build a new web every day! If a fresh web is left intact after the spider responsible leaves, a different spider can essentially “move in” and use that web as its new home.

• Sticky Stuff: Louise makes a tasteful joke about “sticking” with Phoebe because spiders create a sticky substance, but Phoebe rudely doesn’t seem to find it funny. Actual spider webs are made of silk that the spider produces from tiny pores in its spinnerets. The “sticky stuff” is enough to hold the spider and its prey up, so surely it’s strong enough for a friendship between a girl and a spider!

• Vicious Eating: After catching live flies for Phoebe’s lunch, the kids watch in horror as the spider devours the insects in a gruesome fashion. Tina’s description of the spider’s actions sounds exactly like a real spider’s feeding habits: wrap the insect up in silk and immediately devour it. Real spiders also bite the insect before wrapping, then eat it by spitting digestive fluid onto the prey and slowly chewing it up. Larger spiders can even eat critters that seem too large for consumption, like lizards, frogs, and birds. 

• Natural Box: Louise’s makeshift habitat for her new spider is actually an ideal place for a lonely arachnid to stay. The twigs and leaves inside the shoebox are perfect for a web-building spider to spin its sticky webs around. Outdoors, spiders like to hide under natural materials while resting or feeding, so they are often found under rocks and wood. They can also use manmade materials when they invade a civilized place, so it’s common to find spiders under patio furniture, yard decorations, and birdbaths.

• Stay In The House: When the family tries to explain to Louise why the spider can’t stay in the house anymore after finding Phoebe in the main bedroom, she insists that a house spider needs to stay indoors. Any spider is unwelcome in the home (in our humble opinion), but Louise is correct that house spiders won’t survive outdoors. Different spider species can technically be “house spiders” because the only criteria is that the spider has never lived outside, making it completely vulnerable to the harsh natural world. 

• Basement Home: After seeing how important Phoebe’s safety is to Louise, Bob lovingly offers a mutually-beneficial solution: place Phoebe in the basement to eat as many flies as she wants while staying away from the family. Real spiders prefer spaces that are dark, isolated, sheltered, and cluttered — aka the basement. They are also happy in the attic, crawl space, garage, and shed. However, house spiders only live up to 2 years, so we can only hope that Louise didn’t plan on visiting Phoebe for years to come.

Subjective Accuracy Rating Of The Episode: 5/5

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Citations

ABC News. (2004, April 23). Want to climb walls? Key is spider grip. ABC News. Available at https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/FutureTech/story?id=99541&page=1# (Accessed on November 21, 2023).

Bouchard, L., Dauterive, J, & Saleem, J. (Writers) & Mattos, R., Riggin, T., & Gennaro, T. (Directors). (2022, April 10). The spider house rules (season 12, episode 17) [TV series episode]. In L. Bouchard (Executive Producer), Bob’s Burgers. 20th Television Animation.

How do spiders choose where to spin their webs?. (n.d.). Assured Environments. Retrieved November 21, 2023, from https://www.assuredenvironments.com/blog/how-do-spiders-choose-where-to-spin-their-webs 

Kentucky spiders: Spider anatomy. (2009, November 19). University of Kentucky Entomology. Retrieved November 21, 2023, from https://www.uky.edu/Ag/CritterFiles/casefile/spiders/anatomy/spideranatomy.htm 

McLendon, R. (2021, February 22). 8 facts about the misunderstood house spider. Treehugger. Available at https://www.treehugger.com/facts-about-misunderstood-house-spider-4868827 (Accessed on November 21, 2023).

Myth: Spiders only “suck juices” of prey. (n.d.). Burke Museum. Retrieved November 21, 2023, from https://www.burkemuseum.org/collections-and-research/biology/arachnology-and-entomology/spider-myths/myth-spiders-only-suck