Cecil does not consider bed mites for this answer. Are bed mites at all related to spiders? They are both aranchnids, are they not?
Link to the MAILBAG ANSWER: Does the average person consume four spiders each year in his sleep? Please post the link, so that everyone can be on the same page in the ensuing discussion.
Please note, this is a MAILBAG ANSWER, and was not written by Cecil, but by our staff insect-ologist, Doug.
I’ll try to get him to comment on mites.
First, the requisite link:
Does the average person consume four spiders per year in his sleep?
As to the post, yes, mites are related to spiders, in that both are arachnids. They are, however, classified in separate Orders (within the Linnaean hierarchy): mites within Parasitiformes and Acariformes, and spiders within Araneae.
As to whether people inhale the mites themselves (as opposed to mite skin and excrement), I cannot say…
Oops…guess I wasn’t quite quick enough, eh?
Sort of a hijack:
Another problem with this legendary statistic that Doug didn’t cover is how would such data be gathered? It would have to be no more than a guess by whoever put it out there, unless they rigged several people with some sort of “inhaled spider detector” when they slept.
Sure, there are loads of weird subjects for research studies, but I wouldn’t be able to take this pseudofact seriously unless someone told me how they came up with it.
I guess that was a total hijack. Had nothing to do with the OP, but at least it related to the column. Sorry 'bout that.
I think all the arguments against swallowing spiders that Doug gave would apply to mites as well. The would still avoid your breath, not jump or crawl into your mouth willingly, and would be too small to be detected.
Perhaps crap like this gets started via the following mechanism:
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The average human might eat four spiders per year (because of who knows what ends up in hot dogs, chocolate, etc.)
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The average person (okay, the average moron) upon hearing the above says, "Gee, I don’t remember eating four spiders, last year. I must have ate them in my sleep.
Boom. Urban legend gets started.
Just a guess,
Brian
I thought we’d covered this once or twice before…
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=35104
A few years ago, the Smithsonian had a travelling exhibit which explained it this way:
Bits and pieces of dead spiders are a measurable component of house dust.
Somehow (exactly how I don’t know, nor do I want to know), they are able to measure how much house dust one inhales during an average night.
Through the wonders of mathematical extrapolation, they are able to compute that the average person inhales the equivalent of X number of spiders over Y period of time.
Science rocks, dude!
<< Through the wonders of mathematical extrapolation, they are able to compute that the average person inhales the equivalent of X number of spiders over Y period of time. >>
'Course, that’s INHALES microscopic li’l bits, that aint SWALLOWS.
The same reasoning, of course, would give us an appalling amount of dog shit … or even, based on dead human cells floating about, rampant cannibobbolism!!
Wheeee! I gonna start a email floating about, did you know that the average human being eats three people a year?
This is a new one:
“A few years ago, the Smithsonian had a travelling exhibit which explained it this way: Bits and pieces of dead spiders are a measurable component of house dust. Somehow (exactly how I don’t know, nor do I want to know), they are able to measure how much house dust one inhales during an average night. Through the wonders of mathematical extrapolation, they are able to compute that the average person inhales the equivalent of X number of spiders over Y period of time.”
That’s CHEATING. As pointed out, if you count that as swallowing spiders, then we also swallow several roaches, centipedes, house flies, cats, dogs, birds, and a few pounds of human flesh in our lifetimes. If that’s how the damn UL got started, then we need a good counter-UL campaign to kill it forever.
Doug, you’re right, of course, but then, no matter how the story got started, we’ve still got to kill it. Of course, for any UL, there’s always about a dozen plausible explanations for its origin, and it’s probably usually just some idiot with an e-mail account and a craving for attention.
Well, I know an old lady who swallowed a spider, but that was only to get the fly.
I guess she’ll die.
From Webster’s New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition
swallow
- to take in; absorb; engulf; envelop; often with “up”
Seems to me that, while the legend may be stated somewhat imprecisely, it is not exactly cheating.
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I certainly hope not.
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This is a stupid question. Who the hell swallow’s spiders in their sleep? I swallow my spiders while I’m awake.