Kai Fueldner, head of the Kassel Natural History Museum, holds a live tarantula spider.

By Timo Lindemann

Many people react with a scream when they see a spider. But exhibitions featuring the eight-legged animals are also often a hit with the public. So expect those ‘eeks’ to turn into ‘aahs’ at the Museum of Natural History in Kassel with its exhibition, Fascination Spiders, which runs until next March 15.
 “We want to spark a liking for an interesting group of animals. They are not disgusting animals. They have a rightful place in nature,” says Kai Fueldner from the museum, located north of Frankfurt.
There are about 46,000 types of spiders throughout the world. It has never been quite clear why people experience fear and disgust when they see spiders, according to spider expert Peter Jaeger from the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt.
“There is an ambivalence which connects us to spiders. For some, that’s disgust. “But in the zoo or in a documentary on television, we are fascinated,” said Jaeger.
Professor Kristin Mitte from the psychological diagnostics department at the University of Kassel said she suspects the fear has an evolutionary origin. “Early humans learned to beware of predators including spiders that are possibly poisonous,” she said.
Other theories claim a cultural origin and blames Europe during the Middle Ages. “Many people thought at that time that spiders could pass on diseases. Disgust served therefore more as a protection mechanism,” said Mitte.
Jaeger said people may simply be scared of spiders because the creatures can move quickly and supposedly also go after people.
 “But that is more secondary in my opinion,” said Jaeger, who assumes instead that children adopt the behaviour patterns of their parents. “If a mother screams at the sight of a spider, that is engraved in children for their whole life.”
On top of that are stories and films about spiders. Regardless, spider exhibitions always draw a lot of visitors. “The glass in between you and the spider helps a lot. That means the situation is under control,” said Jaeger.
The show in Kassel includes more than 40 terrariums. Spiders are not insects, but members of a phylum known as arthropods.
In addition to the world’s largest tarantula and the black widow, the exhibition shows other arthropods such as millipedes and the African emperor scorpion.
Among the topics addressed in the exhibition are lifestyle, reproduction and hunting methods. Fabulous stories involving spiders’ webs in medicine and technology also get attention, along with arachnophobia, the pathological fear of spiders.
“Arachnophobia is rarely immobilising,” says Mitte. Most sufferers just get on with their lives and avoid spiders. She says psychological therapy for the condition is not justified.
Spider enthusiast Jaeger disagrees. He does in fact offer a course to conquer fear of spiders. “About 99% of the participants are women. That’s only because they are courageous enough to go to therapy,” said Jaeger. Men aren’t.
A therapy called confrontation is necessary if the fear does affect an individual’s daily life. Some people break out in a sweat even when they see a picture of a spider. At the end of the therapy, all of the patients have been able to hold a tarantula in the hand.
 “It’s about experiencing something worse than a normal house spider, and that is then the big tarantula,” said Jaeger. – DPA