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Do we really swallow insects and spiders when we sleep?

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Jitro
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14 Aug 2012, 8:45 pm

SpiritBlooms wrote:
No matter how we may try to escape it, we are part of Nature.

I once accidentally ate a fly when I was a child, and though it disgusted me at the time, it had such a distinct flavor (I still remember it, it was that distinct) that I now realize why my cats love them, even though I hope to never ever eat another one. The weird thing was that the flavor was familiar to me at that time, as if I instinctively knew the taste of fly.

I think we probably do eat a lot more tiny insects and spiders than we think. They're also a part of the natural diets of animals that we eat.


The thing is, why would insects and spiders fly into a place that's deadly to them? The wetness and everything is deadly to these little creatures.



naturalplastic
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15 Aug 2012, 1:54 pm

This is a job for Mythbusters!! !! !!


They should take videos of eight hours of people sleeping to see if bugs go into the sleeping person 's mouth.

Actually -the work is already done. One of the avant garde films made by Andy Warhol back in the sixties consisted of just that- 8 hours of a guy in bed sleeping. No arthropodian wildlife was seen to enter the man's mouth.

But to reiteriate what I said above- there are sendentary fish, and there are sessile sea animals and carnivorous land plants that are specially evolved to lure prey into their mouths so that they eat without moving about to hunt.

If humans (without even evolving lures or stinging tenctacles) had the ability to scarf protein from the environment in our sleep we would never have evolved limbs and brains! (much less the ability to make tools and weapons). We would just stay rooted in one spot and live venus flytraps, or sea anemonies.



SpiritBlooms
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15 Aug 2012, 4:21 pm

Jitro wrote:
SpiritBlooms wrote:
No matter how we may try to escape it, we are part of Nature.

I once accidentally ate a fly when I was a child, and though it disgusted me at the time, it had such a distinct flavor (I still remember it, it was that distinct) that I now realize why my cats love them, even though I hope to never ever eat another one. The weird thing was that the flavor was familiar to me at that time, as if I instinctively knew the taste of fly.

I think we probably do eat a lot more tiny insects and spiders than we think. They're also a part of the natural diets of animals that we eat.


The thing is, why would insects and spiders fly into a place that's deadly to them? The wetness and everything is deadly to these little creatures.

They do. They fly into hot light bulbs and bug zappers. They spatter themselves all over windshields of cars. They get caught on flypaper. They don't know it's dangerous unless some instinct tells them so.



naturalplastic
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15 Aug 2012, 7:08 pm

SpiritBlooms wrote:
Jitro wrote:
SpiritBlooms wrote:
No matter how we may try to escape it, we are part of Nature.

I once accidentally ate a fly when I was a child, and though it disgusted me at the time, it had such a distinct flavor (I still remember it, it was that distinct) that I now realize why my cats love them, even though I hope to never ever eat another one. The weird thing was that the flavor was familiar to me at that time, as if I instinctively knew the taste of fly.

I think we probably do eat a lot more tiny insects and spiders than we think. They're also a part of the natural diets of animals that we eat.


The thing is, why would insects and spiders fly into a place that's deadly to them? The wetness and everything is deadly to these little creatures.

They do. They fly into hot light bulbs and bug zappers. They spatter themselves all over windshields of cars. They get caught on flypaper. They don't know it's dangerous unless some instinct tells them so.


Talk about false analogies.
Bugs dont run into windshields. Windshields run into bugs. Or rather-speeding cars run into flying bugs head on.

Bugs need to rest on surfaces like any other flying creature. The smaller you are the more you are effected by the forces of adhesion hense flies stick to fly paper-which doesnt exist in the natural world- exept in the form of spider webs- which evolved for the purpose of bug predation.

Bug zappers and and light bulbs are unnatural light sources. Bugs navigate by sun and star light. The bugs think the light bulbs are celestial bodies and try to maintain a straight flying course by staying abreast of the light bulb- resulting in them flying around the light bulbs.

Bug zappers are designed to build on that instinct and employ just the right light wavelengths to draw bugs to their deaths.

Not the same thing as prying open your mouth and going into it. Large sleeping vertabrates with moist mouths have existed for the same 100s of millions of years that insects have existed, but not light bulbs. Light bulbs and human mouths are not analogous.

If it were that easy to get protein in our diets we wouldnt need to eat breakfast.



over9000
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15 Aug 2012, 7:22 pm

If that were true, that would be awesome. More food for me. :twisted: