A creepy-crawly that looks good enough to eat has baffled the Reddit community with its cunning disguise.
In a post on the r/DamnThatsInteresting subreddit, the spider was compared to a Ritz cracker, such is its biscuit-like appearance.
Simply captioned “This spider that looks like a Ritz cracker”, the post left some Reddit users hungry, and others looking for the sick bowl.
Indeed, with its legs barely noticeable on the wooden flooring thanks to its camouflage, the spider’s abdomen closely resembled the savoury snack – which first went on sale in 1934. Almost identical in colour to a cracker, its torso also featured a number of ‘holes’ just like the Ritz design.
“Imagine you are eating some crackers and there is a similar spider in them,” one person pondered. “At some point you reach for the crackers again, put a handful in your mouth and when you start chewing you suddenly feel a warm, slimy substance in your mouth.”
Another was clearly put off their food, adding: “And just like that, as if by magic, I wasn’t hungry anymore.” While a third cursed: “I’ve probably eaten so many of these in my life.”
A fourth person, meanwhile, appeared to have fallen foul of the species’ trick and advised others not to deliberately sample one for themselves. “Dont eat them, the liquid inside their buttocks taste like a bitter medicine that makes you vomit, same with beetles and the ones that cause blisters, those things taste worse than medicines,” he wrote.
And questioned if he was serious about his food faux pas, he responded: “You really dont need to know how dumb can kids be.”
The araneus gemmoides, commonly known as the jewel spider or cat-faced spider is a common, outdoor, orb-weaver spider found in Canada and the USA.
According to Salisbury Greenhouse, the spider eats a “mind-blowing amount of common garden pests”. It adds: “Cat-faced spiders are completely harmless to humans. They’re pretty small, usually about between 0.5 to 2cm across, females being larger than males.
“They vary from light brown to a darker caramelly brown. Cat-faced spiders are honestly a gardener’s best friend, or they should be anyway. If you come across these spiders in your garden, they’ll likely be hiding somewhere safe, 1-2 feet above the ground, with their head facing towards the ground. They’ll be waiting for insects to come into their webs.”
