can tarantulas hear?

Bob the thief

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It is probably bothered by it. Tarantulas are very sensitive to any vibration. All mines turn very agitated when people stop cars on my block blasting music.
 

vulpina

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I would agree with Bob, since they are sensitive to vibrations, I would think that if music were played too loud the vibrations would disturbe them.

Andy
 

Code Monkey

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I'd think you both think wrong as I've seen many posts from people who listen to extremely loud music in the presence of their Ts and get no reaction.

They do appear to be able to pseudo-hear with their ability to pick up atmospheric vibrations (some have reported them learning to react to their caretaker's voice versus other human voices), but they also seem quite capable of adapting to tune out any non-important vibrations.
 

vulpina

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Ok Code, I was just guessing at that, but assumed since they pick up vibrations that the vibrations from loud music would also confuse the T's. I know that when I walk into my T room if my Cobalt or Indian Violet are out the vibrations from walking cause them to rush down their burrows. And I understand that walking is not a constant vibration like music, so maybe they can tune out the consant vibrations.

Andy
 

deifiler

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My P.Regalis used to come out of it's nest when I played cannibal corpse. Even though it was due to the vibrations scaring/luring it out it still was pretty nifty seeing it come out to certain tunes...

Anyway I've moved my speakers now and it's stopped.

Oh one thing I did notice that was interesting... even witht he music on loud ebough to provoke movement from the spider... It could still distinguish the movement of prey and succesffully catch it
 

Code Monkey

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I would say that science has only begun to delve into how sensitive Ts and other spiders are to sound/vibrations. The simplistic version of conventional wisdom says they're deaf because no dedicated and centralized hearing organ is present, but I'm willing to bet we're going to find their whole body is a "hearing" organ. They're probably far more discrimination in picking up and distinguishing important from non-important sounds/vibrations than any sentient hairless ape can manage.
 

jesses

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Originally posted by deifiler
My P.Regalis used to come out of it's nest when I played cannibal corpse. Even though it was due to the vibrations scaring/luring it out it still was pretty nifty seeing it come out to certain tunes...

My Tarantulas don't care about music, but if I play anything by Basement Jaxx, all of my Avicularia (Avic, Versicolor, Metallica) will come out of their webs and start making circles around their enclosure. I have 8 genus of Tarantula and only the Avicularia respond to Basement Jaxx.
 

skinheaddave

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Do you have any arboreals other than Avicularia?

WARNING: The following is pure speculation

I have no idea about Ts, but for scorpions, vibrations can be broken into two catagories. Vibrations coming through the ground are picked up by slit sensilae in the legs, wheras airborne vibrations are picked up by structures such as the trichborthria on the chela -- basicaly "hairs." This is an oversimplification, but that is the basics. So, if tarantulas also have structures specialized for airborne and ground-based vibrations it would make sense that arboreal tarantulas would be adapted to detect airborne vibrations moreso than terrestrial Ts. Avicularia DO have incredibly long setae (one of the reasons I don't like them) which should be particularily attuned to airborne vibrations. So perhaps your avics are "hearing" the music moreso than your other Ts. As for speculations on their musical taste, I'm not going to touch that one. :)

Cheers,
Dave
 

crash769

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My A. Avic comes out of her web when I play music or have my T.V. lould. She seems to be the only one to respond to it.
 

deifiler

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Well, if you consider that 'hearing' is merely soundwaves, airbourne vibrations caused by different pressures, then vibrating against our ear drum, then the rest of the ear, where the vibrations are transfered into actual 'sounds' in the cochlea (Sorry if that's incorrect but I havn't studied this for years!)

We could do with better information on the process of human and other animal hearing..

With that in mind though, could tarantulas simply feeling the soundwaves be classed as hearing?

Oh and its George they like! I mainly play the live cannibalism CD :D
 

skinheaddave

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I don't think you can count feeling of the sound-waves as hearing unless the nervous system is set up in such a way as to interpret the vibration as sound. The cochlea basically has different parts attuned to different frequencies and this is what allows us to hear the different frequencies. I know that Ts can feel the vibrations, but I don't imagine they interpret it as sound at all.

Cheers,
Dave
 

deifiler

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Originally posted by skinheaddave
I don't think you can count feeling of the sound-waves as hearing unless the nervous system is set up in such a way as to interpret the vibration as sound. The cochlea basically has different parts attuned to different frequencies and this is what allows us to hear the different frequencies. I know that Ts can feel the vibrations, but I don't imagine they interpret it as sound at all.

Cheers,
Dave
Ahh that's good enough for the hypothesis of "tarantulas can't hear" to be formed for me.
 

pelo

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I imagine Code Monkey's T's know his presence...all those bad vibrations he gives off...;P ....lol....peace...
 

Code Monkey

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Originally posted by skinheaddave
I don't think you can count feeling of the sound-waves as hearing unless the nervous system is set up in such a way as to interpret the vibration as sound. The cochlea basically has different parts attuned to different frequencies and this is what allows us to hear the different frequencies. I know that Ts can feel the vibrations, but I don't imagine they interpret it as sound at all.
That's a mighty subjective definition of hearing you got, Dave.

Sure, it's probably a safe bet to say that because of how different the T CNS is that they don't hear vibrations the same way we do, but it's also so different that they don't probably sense ANY vibration the same way we do.

They sense the same vibrations that we do as sound, but how its interpreted is pure speculation. I find it safe to say they "sense/hear" vibrations because there's no way to know what their perception of it is as all. That they're picking up on auditory (to us) vibrations means that in so far as you can make comparisons they are sensing and/or hearing sound (which is nothing more than a particular set of wavelengths of airborne vibration that our organs are sensitive to picking up an our CNS wired to create a thought that we perceive as sounds).
 

xBurntBytheSunx

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"Oh and its George they like! I mainly play the live cannibalism CD"

good deal, i was at the show where they recorded half of that album. george pointed right at my friend and said "I WILL KILL YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU " one of the more memorable shows i've been to.
 

Tamara

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Nice thread!
I think that the end justifies the means, in this case. Sound is vibration, and being able to perceive and react to that vibration is, loosely speaking, hearing.
It could just be a discussion of semantics--does hearing necessitate having an ear? If so, then T's don't hear. But we know they're listening.:?
Tamara
 

arcane

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*random drunken philosophical rant*

There's this article by this guy named Nagel, something like "What It's Like to Be a Bat"... how we can never really fully comprehend the sensory world of something like a bat, because we have nothing to compare to, nothing equivilant. We think "bat sonar" and we think of some predator like vision system, but it is closer to hearing.

Anyway.. they can detect sound waves, I'd say that qualifies as hearing in my book. Sure, it may not be like ours, but their vision is along different spectrums they still "see".

Here's a link to the Nagel article for the academic types with too much time on their hands:

nagel link
 
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