It’s the Halloween season. People may put up spooky webs! But for spiders, webs aren’t just for October. They spin webs all year long! Jacob Gorneau (JG) works at the California Academy of Sciences. He’s a spider expert — or an arachnologist arachnologist : person who studies spiders and related animals . He told News-O-Matic (NOM) all about the critters!

NOM: What do you do most days?
JG: Every day is different. Some days, I am working on spider DNA DNA : information in a living thing that tells it how to look and act to learn how different spiders are related. Sometimes, I am working in the arachnology collection at the California Academy of Sciences. It has over 1 million spider specimens specimens : examples of a species ! My favorite days are when I do fieldwork. That’s when we study and collect arachnids. I get to be inspired by nature.

NOM: How long have you been studying spiders?
JG: I have been studying spiders for almost four years now! I actually used to be terrified of spiders. But I always liked insects, their six-legged cousins. I didn’t want to fear spiders. So I caught spiders outside my house in New York. I held them to get over my fear. There are no dangerous spiders in New York, so I knew that by holding the spiders and looking at them, I found ways to appreciate them a lot more.

NOM: Do you think it’s rewarding to study spiders? Why?
JG: Yes! I think that spiders and other arachnids are misunderstood. One of my favorite parts of my job is getting people who might be scared of spiders to understand their importance.

NOM: What would you say to someone who doesn’t think spiders are worth studying — because the critters are scary?
JG: I do understand being afraid. People make them out to be scary and dangerous, when very few spiders are dangerous to people. A lot of fear comes from not knowing about something. When I began to learn more about spiders, I not only feared them less, but also became more interested. Spiders play a really important role in the environment. They are predators predators : animals that hunt other animals for food of insects, and food for many animals.

NOM: What is your favorite kind of spider and why?
JG: Some of my favorite spiders are huntsman spiders! There are over 1,000 species of them. Some are friendly to each other. Take the huntsman spider Delena cancerides. Those spiders live together in a colony. There is also a huntsman spider named after one of my favorite singers, David Bowie. It is bright orange and very fuzzy!

Updated October 27, 2022, 5:03 P.M. (ET)
By Ryan Cramer