An hilarious Simon’s Cat video that sums up the human’s fear of spiders as compared to the cat’s, oh-so-relaxed attitude towards them. What happened to humans?
In the modern world, Simon’s cat is more sensible than Simon. The answer as to why people are fearful of spiders is because back in caveman times – the birth of homo sapiens – people were frightened of spiders because some were poisonous. They threatened the survival of the human. Fine. But why is the cat so relaxed with spiders. Answer: the cat can kill a spider without being bitten because the cat is very quick and very sharp when it comes to defences and killing prey. The cat is not fearful of the spider because he is a better hunter (going back to caveman times) than the human. You’ll see African wildcats (the wild ancestor of today’s domestic cat) catching and eating poisonous snakes and snakes are fast. Let’s celebrate the domestic cat’s abilities.
Note: thanks Ruth aka Kattaddorra for showing me the video. I loved it.
I take your point. I guess cats can get bitten by a spider. Perhaps the domestic cat has lost some of his skills. That said sometimes cougars try and eat porcupines and get a facefull of quills which can actually kill them through infection. Not all cats are smart and quick all the time.
However, the African wildcat was domesticated for his/her ability to catch snakes and rodents we are told.
I tried to research my big scary spider and according the internet the largest Wisconsin spiders in existence have a one inch body size. Well, that is just BS, because I know what I saw. That was up north. I’m willing to bet there is nothing like that down here, but if there were, I’d be terrified if Monty were stalking one of those. Just because he’s not afraid of insects doesn’t mean they can’t hurt him. Like bees. And poisonous spiders.
I love Simon and his cat. I’ve seen most of his videos, but I had not seen this one. Very funny. The chaos that ensues after he notices the spider reminded of this time that a fish bit my sister’s little toe at Devil’s Lake when we were sticking our feet in off the rocks at the base of one of the bluffs. It frightened her so much that she jumped and screamed and ended up scraping her elbow on the rocks very badly. She said the nibble on her toe didn’t really hurt at all and she should have been more calm about it because then she wouldn’t have ended up with a scraped elbow. We think the fish mistook her little toe for a worm.
When I was a teenager I once saw a spider nearly as big as my outstretched hand on a web strung between some tall plants next to a country road. It was black with a yellow mark on its back. I stayed well back from it and just kept staring at it. I had no idea we could get spiders that big in Wisconsin. I have never found out what kind it was. It was simply terrifying in appearance. However, the poisonous spiders are usually the little ones, at least around here– the brown recluse and the black widow. Both are tiny.
Monty is in charge of dispatching all bugs in this house from the run of the mill house flies to those big scary, puffy caterpillar things that come up out of the drains. He loves hunting big scary bugs. Several times though I have taken beetles away from him outside. I don’t want him to eat something crunchy that might get stuck inside of him and cause damage to his GI tract.
They are primeval. I am actually OK with them. I don’t like them but I can trap and release them. Cats seem them as play things. Strange.
I was screaming along with Simon while watching this, OMG I hate spiders so much and had one as big as a dog at work a couple of weeks ago which I had to stop a man and dog passing by the office to come in and remove for me, I couldn’t work with it there but couldn’t touch it to get rid of it either. I love the way Simon had trouble directing his cat’s attention to the spider at first, as we know cats can’t see what’s right in front of their nose, so he pretended to throw something to make his cat look at it. Really funny one of the best so far I think.
I thought you’d love this video Michael, I’ve watched it three times today and laughed myself silly.
There’s just something so primeval about spiders, especially the big hairy ones aaagggghhhhh
Anything bigger than a money spider and my screams are ear shattering lol