Study Finds Psilocybin Effects How Spiders Build Webs

Researchers study the effects mescaline and psilocybin have on spider web building.

April 1962

Researchers reported in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics on the effects of mescaline, psilocybin and increased body weight on spider web construction. Psilocybin caused spiders to build webs using shorter threads the day after dosing at 150 mg/kg per os, but there was no change in the thread weights or the proportions of the webs. The researchers saw a dose-dependent decrease in web building frequency with psilocybin. When the dose reached 6 g/kg, none of the spiders built a web the next day. It was unclear if the higher dose of psilocybin affected thread production or if the spiders experienced a similar relaxing effect as higher animals do. Psilocybin was more potent than mescaline in effecting web building behavior by a factor of 10:1.