Spiders Craving Human Blood

It may sound like the plot for a bad horror movie, but there are spiders out there that crave human blood. Luckily, they don’t have the capability to bite humans, which leaves them with a different source of food: mosquitoes.

The jumping spider, Evarcha Culicivora, actually seeks out mosquitoes that have just filled their bellies with blood from humans so it can devour them. Even more interesting, and why scientists think they might be able to use these spiders. They specifically like mosquitoes that have the malaria parasite. This means we have a natural defense to Malaria in the way of a spider.

Of course, nothing is perfect, as these spiders only like the mosquitos after they have blood in their stomach, which means someone has already been bitten by them before these spiders snatch them up. But it does make one less malaria-infecting mosquito to spread the disease around.

For years, scientists have been trying to press that many spiders in the world are actually good for us to have and this spider just proves that. The Evarcha is drawn to human odor, especially dirty socks, but they can’t bite humans and they seek out a blood-sucking pest that causes thousands of deaths every year.

So it may sound strange, but we need to be letting these spiders into our homes and leaving them alone while they hang out. Even if it means giving them a little dirty sock home so they stay out of our laundry.