Comments

  3. SEF says

    Very good! :-D

    Now we just need a selective breeding programme to get a variant with pale vampire fangs in that wide red mouth …

  5. Dawn says

    Hey PZ…don’t you usually put the critter’s name below the picture? I like looking them up and learning more about the Metazoans on Monday and the Cephalopods on Friday. (Although, I will admit that with my phobia of spiders, learning more about this one may get a pass. Even the picture gives me the chills.)

  6. JohnnieCanuck says

    Oh, I agree! I’m thrilled, too. It’s just wonderful how quickly you got your girlish figure back.

  8. echidna says

    Dawn,
    If you click on the picture, you will find the article about Theridion grallator.
    Cheers.

  9. says

    Dawn @5 – if you follow the link (click on the picture), you’ll find out that this is called the Happy Face Spider, proper name Theridion grallator.

    Found only on the islands of Oahu, Molokai, Maui, and Hawaii, the happy face spider, such as this one guarding its eggs on a leaf in Maui, is known for the unique patterns that decorate its pale abdomen. Scientists believe Theridion grallator may have developed its distinctive markings to discourage birds from eating it.

  12. Strangebrew says

    Oh yeah tis all fun and games and cutesy till the little sod bites ya and you end up screaming foaming and cursing in equal measure… :-)

  13. Raimund says

    Excellent! I remember doing a presentation on Hawaiian arthropods way back in grade school, though I may simply have referred to them as insects back then, not knowing any better. This was possibly my favorite of the bunch.

  14. piratebrido says

    I want to give that spider a big (or should that be bug?) hug! To think they used to scare me too.

  15. Dahan says

    I would NOT be happy if I came across one of these. Spiders weird me out. I know that’s not necessarily rational, but something about them goes sets off my fear circuitry.

  17. says

    but are they poisonous or just pretty.
    I could start another “Our Australian spiders are better than your Spiders” war but what’s the point.
    Our Australian Spiders ARE better than yours :-P

  18. True Bob says

    Chaplain, I believe all spiders are venomous – but most are only a threat to their prey.

    BTW, our widows are prettier than yours. NYAAAH!

  19. Strangebrew says

    17#

    but are they poisonous or just pretty.

    Methinks it matters not a jot…tis the principle of the ‘Fang”…

  22. says

    See that red spot? See those four black spots? It is irreducibly complex! Therefore, it must be intelligently designed!! Evolution is disproved!!!!

  23. Annie says

    O Farq!!!!

    That’s just messed up!

    Jeez.

    Now I can’t get my shoulders back down to where they should be. “normal” spiders are bad enough, but dear God, this one’s gonna give me nightmares for weeks.

  27. Julie Stahlhut says

    For a moment, I thought this was going to be a “Happy Monkey!” reference.

  29. Miguel says

    National Geographic Society:

    Scientists believe Theridion grallator may have developed its distinctive markings to discourage birds from eating it.

    Right, because the spiders made a conscious decision to develop the markings… *grumble*

  31. Christophe Thill says

    It’s only a matter of time before evolution produces the LOLspider from this one. Because the probability of being crushed underfoot is significantly lower when you wear a “I CAN HAZ FLY?” message on your back under that goofy smile.

  33. azqaz says

    Miguel, don’t get me started. I, like you, hate that writers fail to use a passive voice when writing about certain things that are, well, passive. They get it beaten into their heads in writing class that you NEVER use the passive voice because it is boring and you could lose your readers attention, so write everything with an active voice. Especially if what you are writing about is passive. Grrrrr.

  34. william e emba says

    If you’re happy and you know it, clap your, uh, chelicerae? Uh, no, pedipalps? Um, geez, could somebody help me here? You know, maybe even throw me a bone?

  36. blueelm says

    OMG that is the cutest spider ever! Oh, and sign me up for the re-instate the passive voice petition. The passive voice was developed for a reason.

  38. shonny says

    Posted by: Atheist Chaplain | April 6, 2009 7:44 AM
    but are they poisonous or just pretty.
    I could start another “Our Australian spiders are better than your Spiders” war but what’s the point.
    Our Australian Spiders ARE better than yours :-P

    Bullshit, Aussie spiders are lame. The lazy buggers never bit me once in 27 years!
    Though I was in hospital in next partition to a sheila who had been bitten by a red-back, and she was moaning a lot. Dumb dutch intern took 15 minutes to diagnose that it was a red-back bite.
    Sydney had a few good ones, but all I found was the empty shell of a Sydney funnel-web.
    Kiwi sheila staying with us nearly shit herself when oldest boy, about 5 at the time, came in with a red-back in his hands and showed her: “Hey Robin, look at pretty spider!”

  40. cyan says

    The lucidity of the passive voice!
    The following is an attempt to get a passive voice into a Wikipedia article on the emperor penguin
    (scroll to very bottom of page to “suggested edits”)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Emperor_Penguin

    One of the cats that I care for thought it good fun to play with a black spider with a red hour-glass on its abdomen, & was really miffed when I squashed the ‘rach before the play was done.

  41. says

    Aussie spiders are lame. The lazy buggers never bit me once in 27 years…

    That’s the trouble with arachnids these days. No work ethic.

  42. 2 cents says

    What a great Monday morning day brightener! Love it!

    I’ve had 5 or 6 brown recluse bites. Didn’t get sick but had some nasty ulcerated lesions that burned and itched. The spider was living in an antique chest that I had just purchased and put in the bedroom.

    Note to self: Clean and inspect all old furniture before using.

  44. Drosera says

    If this isn’t evidence of Intelligent Design I don’t know what is. Don’t you see that God made this spider in His own image?

  48. says

    HAHA, I was just browsing the pulp covers and found my favorite one:

    How to tell if you are sexually normal! A personal 25 point check list. Courtesy of MEN magazine.

  49. Dawn says

    Thanks to all who told me to click on the picture. The link indicator wasn’t showing there was a link attached to the picture, but my employer disables a lot of pictures and links. (And yes, I’m on break at the moment). I’ll check out the info when I get home

  50. Graculus says

    I don’t get the spider-hate, although other people’s arachnaphobia can be fun (I once rest a co-workers homepage to a high res of a huntsman, the scream was heard a block away). What weirds me out is the house centipede, although more in a “Gah, KILL!” way than a “Gah, RUN!” way. I try to refrain from killing them, but nothing above water should move like that.

  53. says

    That’s what I like about Hawai’i. Plus about a million other things. The radiative-speciation story that recovering catholic linked in #11 is such a kick that I bounced in my seat and yelped when I first heard and saw it. Elegant!

  54. Sven DiMilo says

    The passive voice was developed for a reason.

    I see what you did there…

    Regretably, the business end of this spider is not so happy. We’re admiring its, like, lower-back tattoo.

  55. Jadehawk says

    I like the Trophy Wife a lot less now. That image is going to be a recurring nightmare from now on *sigh*

  57. Qwerty says

    I wouldn’t let this thing get too close to my martini. It looks like an olive with a pimento. One swallow and it could tickle my throat.

  58. says

    I followed through the Berkeley pages about the spiders, and the current hypothesis is that their varied appearance makes it harder for birds to hunt them, because there’s more than one pattern to keep in mind. It’s likely the bird hunts for the most common morph (plain) most of the time and thus more patterned morphs survive to reproduce. If one of the patterns became more common, the birds would likely switch “search images.” I’m sure that experiments are being devised as we speak.

  60. David says

    Am I the only one that see the Virgin Mary? Where is this spider so the fatihful can visit?

  61. Bill says

    Why is this abdomen smiling? Because he sees Jesus in a clown hat on the thorax. Praise the Lord!

  62. David says

    Bill, I’m sorry but you’ve got it all wrong. Anyone can see that’s the virgin mary and those are her tears on the thorax.

  63. Riman Butterbur says

    My (highly uneducated) guess would be to look for something in the genetics, rather than the predation hypothesis.

    It seems unlikely that the random vagaries of life that make up natural selection could maintain such a consistent ratio as 2:1 generation after generation.

    Maybe the genes that control the color patterns also have some physiological effects that make certain combinations of genes nonviable? Something like the sickle-cell heterozygosity in West Africa.

  66. Sven DiMilo says

    My (highly uneducated) guess would be to look for something in the genetics, rather than the predation hypothesis.

    Any adaptive explanation (i.e. one involving natural selection) is based “in the genetics,” as only heritable traits can evolve. The genetics of coloration in these spiders is dealt with (briefly) here. Did you read the site?

  67. Mrs Tilton says

    PZ,

    gorgous pic, gorgeous animal. Kudos to the Trophy Wife for choosing it. I have nothing against molluscs, you understand, but…

    True Bob @18,

    I believe all spiders are venomous – but most are only a threat to their prey

    Most but not all spiders are venomous. The Uloboridae family (farily common; they make the “classical” orb webs, but these tend to be horizontal rather than vertical in orientation, and trap prey with velcro-loke cribellate webbing rather then sticky silk) have lost their venom glands, though they once had them. The males of some salticid (jumping spider) species have also lost their venom glands, probably becauswe it wasn’t worth the effort to pump the stuff through their grotesquely enlarged fangs. The Liphistiidae family have no venom either, and this I find intriguing. They are the most primitive of all living spiders, so I am curious whether their lack of venom is ancestral or derived.

    The second part of your statement is dead-on right, however.

  69. Riman Butterbur says

    Sven DiMilo

    Yes, I did read the whole thing, and it was very brief. It didn’t say how many different genes are involved, which ones are dominant, which recessive, etc. It only mentioned breedings from two of the four islands.

    It left me wondering how thorough their breeding experiments were. If they bred true-breeding strains of all the different color patterns and then crossed them in all possible ways, then the 2:1 ratio should have been evident in the proportions of hybrid offspring being born, if my idea was right.

  70. astrounit says

    That spider is adorable, even if it does have a sinister “happy face” logo on it.