Chemicals that Taste Bad to Spiders but are Not Dangerous

[Tenodera]

Anybody know of any? Especially ones which are easy to obtain, even mundane. Preferably odorless, stick to insects...

 

[macj1983]

Might I ask for what?

 

[The Snark]

I think you are first going to need to establish if spiders have taste buds. Few even have a sense of smell in anything that could be considered the ordinary way. None have a sense of smell that contributes to the taste of food as in humans that I'm aware of..

 

[poisoned]

I think you are first going to need to establish if spiders have taste buds. Few even have a sense of smell in anything that could be considered the ordinary way. None have a sense of smell that contributes to the taste of food as in humans that I'm aware of..

AFAIK spiders have chemical receptors. Which essentially is a sense of smell/taste.

 

[pitbulllady]

AFAIK spiders have chemical receptors. Which essentially is a sense of smell/taste.

BUT they still do not sense or process taste in the same way that we do, thus we have no real way to determine if a chemical "tastes bad" to them or not. I'm assuming that the OP is looking for something to act as a spider repellent, for whatever reasons, that won't harm the spider. Commonly-used insect repellents work largely by masking our CO2, which is how they find us in the first place, and the most effective, DEET, IS toxic. Spiders are not parasitic, and don't actively seek us out, unlike mosquitoes or ticks, so repellents designed to keep parasitic blood suckers at bay won't be effective on spiders.

pitbulllady

 

[The Snark]

As one example, it was determined some years ago that Latrodectus Hesperus had cells resembling olfactory cells in the leg joints between the femur and the patella. Why in the legs and what exactly it is able to sense is still a mystery some 40 years later.

Here is the most recent info I have been able to find on their chemical sensory abilities.
"Chemical senses are also important to spiders, both those for taste and those for smell. Little is known about some of the spider's sense of smell, though we know they have one. The tarsal organs (small pits on the dorsal side of each tarsus) are now believed to be moisture detectors. Taste, which might b called chemical perception through direct contact, is better understood. The average spider has hundreds of chemoreceptive hairs most found on the tarsi of its first legs. Spiders can be seen to reject a prey item after touching it. Chemical receptors are also used during courtship."

 

[Tenodera]

macj, it's for an experiment I'm going to be doing to test Phidippus' memory and prey recognition.
I'm aware of chemicals like lucibufagins that can be applied to prey toads the spider reject it because of the taste, but those aren't exactly commercialized. The odorlessness would really just be convenient, because then I don't have to do anything to remove that variable.

 

[poisoned]

Maybe odor of those stinky bugs would work?