One of my students dropped a petri dish full of newly emerged spiderlings at approximately 10:15am on 31 July 2019. Containment was breached. Occupants of the dish saw their opportunity and immediately began ballooning, rappelling down from the desktop, and generally making a concerted escape. The air was full of tiny baby spiders on invisible strands of silk wafting about; the authorities made an effort to retrieve the escapees, which mainly consisted of staring cross-eyed into the air and trying to snare balloon thread with paintbrushes and fingers. Many were recovered, but others remain at large.
After I was done laughing, I faced a dilemma. Do I report this to the biology safety officer? I err on the side of caution, and immediately explain the situation to the official in charge, who happens to be me.
Me: Scores of baby Parasteatoda tepidariorum have launched themselves into the air in a mad bid for freedom!
Safety officer: Are they harmless, cute, and adorable?
Me: Yes, very.
SO: Quick, release a bottle of fruit flies so the little rascals don’t go hungry!
Also, we captured some of the escapees into different petri dishes, which effectively reduces the population density of the newborns. Good way to redistribute the surplus population.
My colleagues are going to be wishing I went back to zebrafish. The occasional flood now looks benign.
One of my students dropped a petri dish full of newly emerged spiderlings at approximately 10:15am on 31 July 2019. Containment was breached.
Transcript follows:
S: “The jar broke when I dropped it, and the subject escaped.”
PZ: (garble) stray (possibly “spray” (garble) … radiation meter? What is the label?”
S:“It says Abby … Normal?”
PZ: “What!? You accidentally released an Abnormal Spider?!”
[Transcript ends]
Oy wey, next thing you will have students climb on the walls and dress up in funny costumes.
@1 Yes the start of the doc’s post did sound like the start of a 50’s B sci-fi movie ,there was always a grizzled scientist somewhere in the plot.
Do not read this unless you want to scare yourself:
Giant ticks which hunt their prey confirmed in the Netherlands
“Quick, release a bottle of fruit flies so the little rascals don’t go hungry!”
“There was an old
ladybiologist whoswallowedreleased some flies…”You know how this goes, you’re going to end up with a herd of horses rampaging in the lab…
But then you’ll have to release some lizards to get the flies, and then it’ll escalate. Pretty soon your lab will be home to a tribe of snake eating gorillas.
I know spiderlings ballooning around are cute, but the insidious Dungeon Master™ in me imagines a corridor full of kobolds traps armed with sacs full of spiderlings, ready to go off on the rude murder hobo adventurers that come to pillage their dungeon warrens.