Dave's book review for Eight-Legged Wonders: The Surprising Lives of Spiders
Author: James O'Hanlon
Pages: 248
Finished reading: 2026-09-08
Back to my books page for more reviews, etc.
My Review
A spur-of-the-moment library checkout. Exactly what it appears to be: A short and fun popular science book for adults (or older kids who are okay reading about spider sex and cannibalism).
As the standard book review would say, O’Hanlon’s enthusiasm is infectious. And it’s true. I do truly feel more interested and curious about my local spiders after reading this book. He’s also clearly very passionate about changing the public’s perception of spiders and addressing negative myths and phobias. Pretty insightful stuff. I guess I’m somewhere on the mild end of the fear/disgust spectrum. I react quite differently to different types of spiders. I recognize it’s not logical. I don’t know if it’s learned or innate.
The chapters are well organized and it’s packed full of fascinating facts. It’s one of those books that has you wanting to tell everybody, "Oh, and you know the other cool thing about spider silk?"
Speaking of that, I had to look this one up to see it with my own eyes and it not only disappoint, it was actually far more spectacular than I’d expected: The Golden Spider Silk Cape (wikipedia.org).
"The Golden Spider Silk Cape is a unique textile woven from the silk of over 1.2 million Madagascar red-legged golden orb-weaver spiders… The textile is not dyed; the golden hue is created by light refraction, and is the natural colour of the spider silk. The cape, which has been described as one of the rarest textiles on Earth, took approximately three years to produce."
Go look at it.
Oh, and you know the other cool thing about spider silk? The act of "ballooning", where they fly, suspended from a web caught in the breeze? So, not only do some spiders end up flying miles into the air, they can actually do it without any breeze at all. It appears that the initial liftoff might be entirely due to static electricity - the spiders and sense and catch a ride on natural electric fields.
Then there’s the aquatic spiders…