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Spider Welfare

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Book cover The Welfare of Invertebrate Animals

Part of the book series: Animal Welfare ((AWNS,volume 18))

Abstract

Spiders with around 48,000 recorded species are major terrestrial predators and thus crucially important for ecosystem functioning. They are widely used as research models and for biodiversity displays and sometimes also kept as pets. Nevertheless, we are not aware of any legal ethical rules bound to spider welfare during rearing or research. To set ethical standards, we first need to detect and assess how spiders “perceive” the external world. Based on the current knowledge of spiders’ sensory and nervous system, it is difficult to judge whether spiders feel pain, distress and suffering, although their behaviours like thanatosis, “bailing out”, autotomy and associative avoidance learning imply so. As is now known, arthropods are not simply mini-robots as traditionally believed. Thus, spider welfare deserves more research effort, and the ethical standards for rearing or using spiders in research need to be set. Here, we describe the variety of spider physiological and behavioural characteristics and how they apply to their rearing, housing, handling and experimental use. We hope reporting these methods will help ensuring welfare and well-being of spiders in captivity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Biology, Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Simona Kralj-Fišer & Matjaž Gregorič

Authors
  1. Simona Kralj-Fišer
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  2. Matjaž Gregorič
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Correspondence to Matjaž Gregorič .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecological and Biological Sciences, Ichthyogenic Experimental Marine Centre (CISMAR), University of Tuscia, Tarquinia, Viterbo, Italy

    Claudio Carere

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB, Canada

    Jennifer Mather

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Kralj-Fišer, S., Gregorič, M. (2019). Spider Welfare. In: Carere, C., Mather, J. (eds) The Welfare of Invertebrate Animals. Animal Welfare, vol 18. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13947-6_5

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