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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Phototoxin" data-source="post: 202075" data-attributes="member: 36320">I will repeat my anecdote from the pingpong thread. My old g.rosea (aka 'Spidey Girl') who was received as an adult - so age unknown. She lived in a cup with the handle broken off and seemed to prefer it to a burrow which had a semi-circle of cork over it.On the opposite side to the cup-lair was a water dish and a yellow ping-pong ball. As tarantulas seem want to do she would often linger or hover over an empty water dish. When I opened the lid to add water or food I would sometimes move the ball with my tongs. Her legs weren't on the ball until I went to move it with the tongs. Most of the time she put her front right (as she would be facing me and the ball was on my left/her right) leg onto the pingpong ball. If I tried to nudge it away she seemed to pull/roll it back in and we could go back and fourth a couple of times. If she persisted I let her 'keep' it.I had an a.geniculata who sadly died in moult before I could introduce a ping pong ball.I currently have 3 g.pulchripes whom I'm planning to introduce balls to once they get a bit bigger. They seem quite 'chilled' and haven't ever flicked so I'm hoping this docility will continue as they realise that they are under no threat.Also with regards to intelligence: bees are smaller, probably have smaller nerve ganglia and I believe it has been demonstrated that they can navigate by the sun, communicate via dancing and count to 4.  Ants count their steps to figure out how far they've travelled etc.So it wouldn't surprise me if we stripped away the 'scary predator' factor of spiders that we would learn how smart they are.As an aside (sorry this reply is so long!) on the topic of 'intelligence':I always say to people when they ask if the spider will bite; the spider doesn't 'want' to bite you, you are bigger and more scary, the bite will just annoy you rather than kill you and as a result you probably will kill the spider. If a spider bites you it probably because it 'feels' like it has no other option to survive.Now I know this is anthropomorphising the spider to an extent.  I don't think spiders want to bite any more than I want to bite a sandwich. It's just part of the process of me surviving (by eating my sandwich). Similarly I don't think the spider feels on a higher level that it has no other option, but rather evolution/instinct and possibly experience has taught it that sometimes if it bites the big thing, the big thing will be startled and thus the spider can get away.I guess you have your work cut out for you in differentiating learned behaviour from innate/instinctive behaviour!</blockquote>

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