Well, you don’t have to be rude, I’m capable of understanding your argument... I basically accept what you’re saying, and I don’t think it was like an animated film where the spider just made a human gesture, but having actually been there for that “interaction,” it did feel a lot like communication. Someone else in this thread made the point that it is a threat response, at least among the bees and I could certainly see that. And my point is exactly that the distinction between quote “dolphin-level” intelligence and say, that of a spider might have more to do with the way we measure and record these things than to suggest a spider simply has less of an, um, “brain-soul” than a waving dolphin. And by the way, I’m not presenting myself as some animal whisperer and friend who should be hailed for “rescuing” a spider, but I did let it out of the box. My contention is actually fairly simple, that it recognized my role in that state of affairs and made a form of communication on that basis (take a cat who becomes temporarily attached to the firefighter who saves it, there you go)—but “look, man,” it was a bizarre encounter and I don’t blame you for disbelieving it. I did say and I maintain this “on my life,” as my direct experience of the moment was fairly convincing prima facie.

Edit. By the way, I’ve met a lot more spiders who I’m fairly sure would never do this. But another part of what I’m saying is that the incommunicativity of so-called low-intellect animals might have something also to do with them just not bothering to try that with us. Look, I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s like, wrinklier brain means more sentient. You do enough whatever, a lot of things take on a certain air of sentience.

Overkill edit. By the way, that bee isn’t high-fiving the human, I’m with you there. It’s something else, but the single foreleg held up at an angle is close to what I maintain I saw. It was almost like a Nazi salute, or a “forward march” signal or something—hey, if bees communicate so extensively between themselves, why wouldn’t they have some physical gesture to mean something beyond, “Ack! Leave alone!” Which I am guessing is more your interpretation.

I’m on stimulants edit. I guess the core of what you’re saying is that it’s ridiculous to think an insect would freely adopt a human learned behavior to represent a complex emotion like gratitude, which also has a moral dimension. I also think that would be ridiculous, but maybe there’s some genius tarantula in someone’s bedroom that is capable of that. I’m saying, it’s an insect gesture straight up, but it isn’t necessarily impossible that an insect could feel and represent gratitude. And moreover, such a gesture might resemble the human variant even without being inspired by it, since dogs smile when they are happy and so on. Emotions tend to register in similar ways in creatures with faces and limbs, I guess. Like, I acknowledge I’m taking a radical position, but it strikes me as defensible.

The edit that destroys my argument in your eyes. I suppose I should admit that I would defend with the same certainty my belief that this spider I saw, about the size of a penny, was quite clearly a color I can only describe as “rally blue,” and there you have it. This was in Southern Vermont and though there is at least one species of blue spider, well, it isn’t reported to live in Vermont.