Do male spiders mistake eyelashes for female spiders? Fact Check

A rumour on social media claims that during “spider mating season”, male spiders will often mistake the eyelashes of a sleeping human for female spiders. The rumour goes on to claim this is often why we wake up with eyelashes “stuck together”.

FALSE

The rumour is spreading on both Facebook and Twitter and an example can be seen below –

Its spider mating season and its a well known fact that at night male spiders mistake eyelashes for female spiders and thats why in the mornings we sometimes wake up with our eyelashes stuck together or a grittyness in the corner of our eyes, its all due to male spider milk.
You’re very welcome

The rumour appears to be a scare-mongering hoax – or perhaps a joke – aimed squarely at arachnophobes.

Searching for common traits in spiders, specifically their interactions with humans, there is no mention of any tendency for spiders to mistake human eyelashes with female spiders, much less attempt to mate with them. In fact we could not find a single mention of such an occurrence in any arachnid-themed literature.

In a bid to get to the bottom of this shudder-inducing social media memo, we spoke to Rod Crawford over email, who is the Curator for Arachnids at The Burke Museum in Seattle, Washington, who told us that the whole thing is most likely a hoax. He told us –

It would be extremely rare for a spider to approach the face of a breathing human. The rush of air in and out is a real turn-off. What’s more, the whole idea that spiders visit people’s beds at night is largely a myth
…
The process of inseminating a female spider involves a very complicated interaction of intricately structured body parts. It couldn’t happen with an eyelash.
Most importantly, male spiders detect the right female to mate with by contact pheromones. Not something they are going to find on a human eyelash!

Rod Crawford maintains a whole section of the Burke Museum that deals specifically with spider related myths and it can be visited here.

Janet Beccaloni, the Arachnida curator at the UK’s Natural History Museum, also dismissed the hoax, telling us –

There is no way that human eyelashes will be mistaken for female spiders by male spiders! Even though most species of spiders have fairly poor eyesight, there are still ways that male spiders ensure that they are approaching not just a female spider, but also one of the same species, such as following the pheromones she has emitted. If she is not of the same species he would not be able to mate with her, plus if she is not receptive to him, he may well end up becoming dinner! So male spider courtship has evolved to get around these problems. This might be in the form of creating vibrations through tapping on the ground, waving his second pair of legs or even giving her a silk-wrapped fly as a present! The type of courtship depends on the spider species involved. If the female accepts his courtship, then the male is able to approach and mate with her.
So – any ‘juices’ or ‘deposits’ in human eyes would therefore have originated from elsewhere!

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And finally, while the phenomenon of stuck eyelashes and “grittiness” in the corners of our eyes in the morning is genuine, it thankfully has nothing to do with “spider milk”. But the reality is still pretty icky. As Aimee Haber MD from Cleveland Clinic explains, it’s caused by a combination of tears and mucus produced by the eye during sleep, but since we are no longer blinking during sleep, this can accumulate in the corners of the eye and eyelashes.

Still though, that’s no doubt a preferred explanation than anything to do with misfiring arachnids.

We rank the claim that male spiders can accidentally mate with human eyelashes after a case of mistaken identity as false.