Some old rhymes need updating.
Los Angeles Herald, California, August 14, 1898 pic.twitter.com/j1FHHLJbKu
— Yesterday's Print (@yesterdaysprint) August 13, 2020
I agree, try it!
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Indeed, for spiders are not insects. shudder
So my wife is afraid of wasps (the insects), and she doesn’t much care for spiders.
When eating outdoors the other night a wasp starting bothering us, and she got really annoyed, the wasp flew around the table, and settled on the ground by the wooden siding on the house.
Suddenly a large spider sprang out from behind the siding, caught the wasp, killed it and pulled it up behind the siding.
The whole process took perhaps 30 second or a minute.
Now my wife isn’t sure whether she ought to give in and start loving spiders, or burn the house to the ground to rid the world of the nightmare spider😀
Though this B.C. cartoon in my cartoon aggregator this morning should give both you and Ms Muffet pause:
https://www.gocomics.com/bc/2020/08/13?ct=v&cti=739840
Insect? INSECT???
I seem to be seeing more and more spiders sice this blog went into an arachnophrense.. The other day I sat down on patio for lunch and a large spider fell on my table before I was even served.
The responses here made me wonder something:
When was it that spiders were classified as being separate from insects, anyway?
After all, fungi were considered plants when I looked them up in my elementary school’s antique encyclopedia… But I wasn’t able to find the answer just by typing the question into a search engine, so I’m afraid it eludes my puny engineer mind.
sorenkongstad @2 — I vote for burning it down.
Richardelguru @3
I haven’t read that strip in years so that link got my clicking through it. While still not good it’s so much better now than when Johnny Hart was putting his obnoxious brand of Christianity into the comic.
And I got to find this other one with spiders – https://www.gocomics.com/bc/2020/07/21?ct=v&cti=739840
@Elladan #6
Before 1758, since that’s the date for Linneaus’ Systemae Naturae
fusilier, busy avoiding blockquotes
James 2:24
Spiders aren’t insects… and sometimes that “insect” is actually a spider. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrmarachne
(My little tale of a true encounter with such an animal is posted under a previous spider entry).
Didn’t Dr Muffet used to feed ground up spiders to his daughter ,that’s enough to put anyone off spiders .
@2 Out there in cyper spaec there is a photo of a spider hiding behind some poor sods toothbrush ,so if that happened to your good lady wife would she insist you.
A ,burn the house down straight away ?
Or
B ,spend the night in a hotel ,and burn the house down in the morning ?
OK fine but it doesn’t rhyme.
@fusilier #9:
I tried to verify this, but this copy of Systema Naturale I found places spiders in the class Insecta!
https://archive.org/details/SystemaNaturae/page/n73/mode/2up
Ok, but that’s the 1748 edition. What about a later edition? This appears to be the 1758 edition, printed in 1894:
https://archive.org/details/carolilinnisys00linn/page/344/mode/2up
Despite my inferior knowledge of biology, my impression is that the LA Herald may have had the literature on their side. More authoritative investigation is warranted!
@9 & @14, According to The Biology of Spiders (PDF), Theodore H Savory, 1928, page 2: