Apparently spiders can live for 43 years

Most people aren’t sad when a spider dies. But scientists aren’t most people.

Australian scientists are in mourning today following the report that a spider they had been observing died at 43. It is the oldest a spider has ever lived. Number 16, a trapdoor spider, was born in the wild in 1974, probably with a bunch of brothers and sisters. It was the subject of scientific observation for so long because it lived in the same burrow its entire life. Researchers, and this is true, have expressed sadness at Number 16’s passing.

Fellow spiders said Number 16 always thought he was being watched, until he couldn’t take the stress anymore and killed himself.