What is a personality
We had a scorpion growing up that liked me and not my brother, despite both of us being roughly equally responsible for feeding it. It would come right up to me and take food out of my hand but backed away and tried to not make contact with my brother. That’s enough for me without getting all philosophical about what “personality” means.
It’s name was Viggo, as in Mortenson, as in Strider, the Heir of Isildur.
If by personality you mean individual-level differences in behavior, yes, definitely. (It’s old now but it holds up)
I mean, it’d be odd if there was variation like there is in all organisms but it somehow didn’t extend to the brain.
Even wilder, because of the semi-decentralised way an octopus’s central nervous system is set up, it’s been suggested each tentacle might have a personality of it’s own on top of the octopus’s!
Idk about bugs but snails in captivity have friends who they prefer to spend most of their time with. They also have favorite foods they get excited for.
This comment made me cry. Imagine being a little snail with your little snail best friends getting excited for some lettuce. I can’t handle that.
I also cried when I first learned this 🫂
Spider warning (it’s a jumping spider, so it’s tiny): https://www.youtube.com/shorts/59fZMRVoHCc
Certainly nothing to the level of people or even cats and dogs, but handling does improve personality. Jumping spiders will often recognize their tanks and immediate location as safe territory. They will also start to recognize their handlers as the food bringers and “beg”.
I understand if it’s still offputting if you’re not into creep crawlies, but jumping spiders are sometimes referred to as “octokittens” due to their tendency to be tiny little divas who sit around and clean themselves like cats. It might look a little scary, but when they start waving their front legs around like that they aren’t rearing up in defense like a tarantula, that’s their “give me uppies” pose. You’ll see a lot of videos of them online leaping at the camera; that’s not them attacking, that’s them treating all of life like a jungle gym. Personally I think they’re adorable and I recommend watching more videos from people who love them if you want to see more personality.
EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gEMPLrWh35g , tell me that’s not a cat!
EDIT 2: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DZkaLAoREWo , I think my favorite thing about jumping spiders is you can tell how smart they are. The way they look around and scan their environment and really seem to see things and take it in. You can almost hear the tiny gears turning in their heads as they consider things.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/a-QpxmSD9jo , they’ll also chase laser pointers like a cat.
Endlessly fascinating animals to me, I love them.
I’m so thankful the internet showed me how cute they are. The ones I’m familiar with are too small to see the facial features and proportions. But now that I know I think they’re super cute.
I don’t mind spiders at all but I can totally understand why people have arachnophobia. That’s why I find it hilarious that there’s this one species, a “jumping” species no less, that magically can flip from grotesque to cute.
I really can’t stand spiders except for jumping spiders. They have caused me to become a lot less hostile towards spiders in general
Individual creatures do have their own traits that make them differ from the rest. They aren’t robots following the exact same instruction for every stimulus. That being said, personality implies a sense of agency or self-awareness, and I don’t think they have that. Humans have a built in desire to anthropomorphize anything that begins to resemble something human-like, it’s in our brain.
Personality, in short, is consistent patterns of behavior that exist across time and context. Someone “extroverted” will consistently explore new environments, while someone shy will avoid them
There have been studies that show insects display some aspects of personality
I have kept a bunch of invertebrates (spiders) from the same species and yes, they do have “personality” in the sense that indivduals do react differently to the same or at least a very similar situation. Consistently.
Any examples?
My buddy used to have tarantulas and while I fucking hated and was scared shitless by them, they apparently had recognizable personality quirks and habits according to him. Shiver Creepy little bastards though
Some genera/species are naturally docile but you can sometimes have an individual that doesn’t conform to that. Or you can have a notoriously defensive kind, but one individual is just really chill.
And no, I don’t think you can train them or force those “personalities”. It just happens by chance. Or by some mechanism to complex for me to understand.
Yes they have! Here‘s a video a found ages ago and just spent 10 minutes searching
Idk about scientifically, but I’ve had spiders at my place that seemed like they had different personalities. For example, one was smaller but liked to traverse around and build lots of webs. He’d disappear and turn up in another corner of the room. He tried all the corners except for the one by the shower cuz it was too wet. Kinda spazzy. I called him Napoleon. Meanwhile there was another spider (same species) in the room that was super chill, just hanging out on the same web for months. Not bothered by anything, even when Napoleon built a web in his corner. I dubbed this one The Dude lol
Capture a bunch of these creatures and watch them for a few weeks. You’ll see if they do.
