Spiders could become man’s best friend in malaria fight

Experts say people in East Africa should welcome a common house spider because the arachnids may help protect humans from malaria. Evarcha culicivora spiders, found only in the Lake Victoria area of East Africa, eat female Anopheles mosquitoes, drawn to the human blood carried by the mosquitoes but unable to bite humans directly. Although interventions have curbed malaria deaths in recent years, nearly half a million people — mostly children in Africa — die of the mosquito-borne parasitic disease annually, according to the World Health Organization. SciDev.net (7/31)