Heh, I didn't know about the spider deity stuff, but I do believe they are very intelligent (certain species anyway). Have spent some hours over the years watching spiders exhibit what appears to be very intelligent behaviour. Web-weaving, stalking prey, carrying egg-sacs, shepherding young. Personally I suspect that all hunting animals require a certain degree of intelligence over pure 'instinct', although in spider-world some species seem to act as 'beasts' with some adopting the role of 'man' - I'm thinking mainly Pholcus (Cellar spiders) here - these do a lot of fascinating stuff - including taking out big dumb house spiders (Eratigena), believe it or not. Another 'humanoid' spider is Portia (Jumping spider), which could even be smarter than Pholcus. Hope to post on this subject in a week or two when I've got more time, bit tied up for the next week or two.

Love the retro virus gene swap idea by the way! This is also something that fascinates me, any good sources?