Spiders cannot necessarily “hear” as they do not actually have ears. They do however have sensory nerves (tiny hairs) that are located in the ends of their legs. These tiny hairs are also known as thrichobotria; which they use to search for vibrations or squeaks from mates. Certain spiders are even known to emit a squeak that is inaudible to the human ear.
Spiders are very interesting creatures that feel vibrations that act in a way that sound does and allow the spider to locate where the sound is coming from as well as its approximate distance from the spider. Put in simpler terms, the spider is able to interpret the movement of air that is produced by a sound something makes in order to determine its exact location. Along with hairs on their legs, spiders are also equipped with tiny slits all over their legs for feeling vibrations. So spiders may not be able to “hear” you, but the senses they are equipped with still make it a possibility for them to know when you or potential danger is nearby.
Francine says
April 10, 2013 at 2:22 pmThe reason why I was wondering if Spiders emit a sound is because my dog seems to know when we have one on the ceiling. All of a sudden he will look up and start barking which is good then I can get rid of them. But how on earth does he know?
Gary says
May 29, 2017 at 8:03 pmProbably because dogs have 10x more sensitive hearing that humans…
lucy says
July 13, 2013 at 11:02 pmit doesnt hear of course because it doesn’t have ears of course
Jackie says
September 5, 2013 at 1:20 pmI looked up this information, because I saw a spider in our yard react to my dog barking! And I thought what is going on with that?
Helen says
August 24, 2014 at 5:27 pmYes - a spider in my garden has just reacted to my dog’s bark too! The dog was about 2m away from it & gave a short loud bark; the spider actually jumped, as a human might do (I happened to be looking at it at the time)!!
cosmic sky says
October 2, 2014 at 3:09 amI have seen a spider get alarmed by a vacuum cleaner. It ran in its web towards the vacuum, not leaving its web. It seemed like it was really rattled by the noise.then when the noise was stopped, it went back to a spot in its web where it kept staying at
kayla says
July 11, 2016 at 1:36 amI have been feeding ants to a daddy longlegs daily for quite a while now, and she seems to have gained my trust. She set her web up in a vulnerable place, doesn’t get startled by the vacuum cleaner and when my finger gets very close to her web she is not startled, whereas other daddy longlegs I’ve seen will swing furiously back and forth on their web, trying to thwart a potential attack.
Jon Raddatz says
April 28, 2017 at 5:15 amOkay, I didn’t think they could actually “hear,” as we humans do. So, when I speak to Agnes, one of my pet arachnids, to let her know that my wife wants to remove her from the house and deposit her outside, I should speak softly to her so as not to agitate the vibration sensing mechanisms in her legs. I want to be known as a friend, vs. a threat. Seems like I should just capture her in my safe-mode container and throw her outside. If I speak, it just might add to her trauma, but, oh, how I want to say, “good-bye!”
Skywalker says
May 3, 2017 at 8:53 pmJumping Spiders ‘Hear’ Long-Range Audio with Their Hairy Legs
[ “Hearing in spiders is really different from the way that our own ears work,” study lead author Paul Shamble, a biologist who conducted jumping-spider research with colleagues at Cornell University but is now at Harvard University, told Live Science.
“Instead of eardrums that respond to pressure, spiders have these extraordinarily sensitive hairs that respond to the actual movement of air particles around them,” Shamble told Live Science. “Though they differ in size and number, these specialized ‘hearing’ hairs are found across virtually all spider species.”
Shamble and his colleagues discovered by chance that this “hearing” was even more sensitive than anyone suspected.
The researchers wired a jumping spider’s brain with electrodes — a technique that Shamble helped to pioneer at Cornell in 2014 — to record how the spiders processed visual signals. And then something unusual occurred.]