The smoking area behind the office building I work in is home to hundreds of grand daddy long legs (or harvest spiders, or Opiliones as some people evidently call them). I was wondering if these spiders (or the other spiders/grasshoppers/assorted bugs) in the area are addicted to the second hand smoke which covers the lawn in a haze. Normally insects will run away if you so much as look at them wrong, but most of the bugs found here appear pretty stoned. I was wondering if the second hand smoke and nicotine is causing these insects to hang around and focus on filling their little insect lungs with smoke instead of hunting other insects. Could smoking be affecting the circle of life?
Please advise
Isn’t nicotine quite poisonous to insects?
hmm I don’t know… Never thought that they might not be moving because they’re slowly dying…
Yes, nicotine is toxic to insects (well, it’s also toxic to mammals, FTR). It’s usually used as a “botanical” insecticide, as a liquid spray, rather than as cigarette smoke.
http://www.cahe.nmsu.edu/pubs/_h/h-150.html
I’m guessing that the same thing that attracts the smokers to the area is attracting the bugs–it’s a sheltered sunny corner, right? Out of the wind?
Yup, you got the local right.
In regards to your link, thanks for the info. That will be a nice bit of information to share with my fellow smokers next time I’m out there. Never knew it was used as an insecticide.