Are there really 32,000 different types of spiders, as claimed in spiderman?
I’m watching the movie now and it seems like a staggering theory. Is there a “spider database” on the net somewhere?
I realize these two questions are probably really stupid, but my brain is working, so I figured I’d see if any dopers knew the answers…
According to the World Spider Catalog, there are 37,766 species of spiders in the world.
The term “spider” is a very broad group, namely the entire Order Araneae, which includes 109 Families, which contain 3496 Genera which include 37,776 known species of spider.
The taxonomy of spiders changes from time to time due to new discoveries and lots of differing opinions amongst spider people.
There are (according to the latest numbers that I’ve seen) something like 1.75 million known different species of living things. Estimates of the total number of species in the world today are upwards of 10 million. It’s not really that surprising then that there might be 37,766 known species of spiders.
Damn, that’s a lot of spiders!
Judging by my house, I’d say a good 99% live in Northern Va…
All of them will be crawling all over your body when you go to sleep tonight, ** Meatros**. All 37 million varities.
Pleasant dreams…
Spider-Man, not Spiderman. It’s amazing how unobservant people are.
He will forever be Spiderman as far as I’m concerned. Who cares what Marvel says? 
[paraphrase]
Phoebe: How come he isn’t called Spiderman?
Chandler: Spiderman?
Phoebe: Yeah, Spiderman. Like Goldman?
Chandler: Because he’s a Spider-MAN.
Phoebe: Oh.
[/paraphrase]
Now google for how many species of beetls there are. You’ll be amazed…
Spider-Man and Spiderman are, in fact, two separate characters. Spiderman (no hyphen) was a Joe Simon creation circa 1960 who was pitched to all the major publishers and never picked up. Simon retained the copyright. But when the more famous Lee/Ditko charater made a huge splash, Simon re-tooled his character as the Fly, a minor character for Archie Comics.
lol
Not only that, but you have to consider that aproximatly (figure made up because I forgot the actual figure as reported by the Disc. Channel) 30% of all insect species have not been discovered yet.
He’s not Herb Spiderman, he’s a Spider-MAN.