Phenotypic plasticity is part of evolution, too » « I think this might be a little bit racist

My morning present

My wife is working today, and before she left at 6:30am she left me a gift on my desk, a wolf spider.

She know me well. Now, though, what do I do to reciprocate? Should I get her a prettier spider? My imagination is limited.

Phenotypic plasticity is part of evolution, too » « I think this might be a little bit racist

Comments

  1. Larry says

    This reminds me of the old Nat Geo specials with David Attenborough documenting the mating habits of various birds where one would give their mate some shiny trinket or a bug. Here we have Homo Sapiens Morrisona Myersi demonstrating such behavior.

  3. birgerjohansson says

    Maybe if you increase the oxygen content in your house, you will soon be able to offer her a really big spider!

  7. wonderpants says

    #5 & 6 What have wolf spiders done to you that you would throw the slime of current humanity in with them?!

  8. imback says

    Might I suggest getting her a Gigantometrus swammerdami. Its wiki page says “Its venom is not usually lethal to humans because it has arguably evolved to kill its prey by crushing it with its pincers and not by venom” so not really worse than a black widow spider, though it also says citation needed there.

  10. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    birgerjohansson @3:

    Maybe if you increase the oxygen content in your house, you will soon be able to offer her a really big spider!

    Maybe not. Giant spider fossils haven’t turned up. Giant insects and *-ipedes, yes, and while oxygen did boost their size, predators eventually drove down their max size again, even as oxygen increased.
     
    Wikipedia – Mongolarachne

    The genus contains only one species, Mongolarachne jurassica […] presently the largest fossilized spider on record. […] from the Middle Jurassic […] The total body-length is approximately 24.6 millimeters (0.97 in) while the front legs reach about 56.5 millimeters (2.22 in) in length. This puts M. jurassica females in the same size-range as modern females of Nephila [golden orb-weavers]

    The living Giant huntsman spider, at present-day oxygen levels, can reach a 30 cm (1 ft) leg span.
     
    The 21-inch Late Carboniferous Megarachne was initially misidentified as a giant spider but turned out to be a medium-sized sea scorpion. Oxygen wasn’t implicated.

    Convergent evolution of giant size in eurypterids (2024)

    Eurypterids—Palaeozoic marine and freshwater arthropods commonly known as sea scorpions […] There is no compelling evidence that the evolution of giant size was driven by temperature or oxygen levels, nor that it was coupled with the invasion of continental aquatic environments, latitude or local faunal diversity. Eurypterid body size evolution is best characterized by rapid bursts of change that occurred independently of habitat or environmental conditions. Intrinsic factors played a major role […] The smallest eurypterids were less than 2 cm long as adults, whereas the largest exceeded 2.5 m
    […]
    Gigantism among other Palaeozoic arthropods, such as Carboniferous insects and myriapods, has been attributed to high oxygen levels. The only previous quantitative analysis of eurypterid body size (based on a limited sample of eurypterines) found no evidence that large (>0.5 m) or giant (>1 m) body size is a response to atmospheric oxygen

     
    Reign of the giant insects ended with the evolution of birds (2012)

    “Maximum insect size does track oxygen surprisingly well as it goes up and down for about 200 million years,” Clapham said. “Then right around the end of the Jurassic and beginning of the Cretaceous period, about 150 million years ago, all of a sudden oxygen goes up but insect size goes down. And this coincides really strikingly with the evolution of birds.” With predatory birds on the wing, the need for maneuverability became a driving force in the evolution of flying insects, favoring smaller body size.
    […]
    Clapham emphasized that the study focused on changes in the maximum size of insects over time. Average insect size would be much more difficult to determine due to biases in the fossil record, since larger insects are more likely to be preserved and discovered.

    “There have always been small insects,” he said. “Even in the Permian when you had these giant insects, there were lots with wings a couple of millimeters long. It’s always a combination of ecological and environmental factors that determines body size, and there are plenty of ecological reasons why insects are small.”

  11. John Morales says

    I find the expectation of quid pro quo pertinent to presents pernicious.

    Someone gives you one, so then you are socially conditioned to respond, and not with a lesser one, either.

    (A bit like mandatory tipping; it should be discretionary, not functionally obligatory)

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