Accurately encapsulated, at long last!
It’s true: there are mistakes in Genetics textbooks.
The newly discovered spider below the fold has been given a distinguished name: Thunberga greta. I don’t know who should be more flattered.
Full name: Larinioides, AKA the Furrow Orb Weaver.
I get a bit of grief about showing spider photos, but have you ever seen closeups of insects? Sheesh. Hairy angular beasties with intricate mouthparts and creepy genitalia jutting out. I don’t know how anyone can stand to look at them.
Anyway, take a look at the gallery and shudder. You can reassure yourself that good, sweet, adorable spiders will eat them all.
I’m reading Tea Francis’s story, and wow, that’s me, except I waited until I was 60 to get into spiders. I wasted so much time! (Well, not really, I do have a family and a career, so I can’t complain about that.)
I have kept spiders for almost 20 years now, sometimes just one tarantula, sometimes lots of different types of spiders, but they’ve been present in some capacity ever since I was 17 or 18. After moving somewhere with more space at the beginning of last year, my collection had expanded significantly to almost 200 spiders of all different types. I decided to start an Instagram account to post about my spiders as whenever I posted anything to do with them anywhere else, I got a load of the usual ‘kill it with fire’ responses which I find grating, to say the least. I started to focus my attention on studying them a lot more closely. I invested in my very first DSLR and macro lens and set about learning how to use it. That in itself unlocked a whole new level of appreciation for them and I quickly became hopelessly, irretrievably obsessed. With new photos popping up on my Instagram feed every day, sometimes multiple times a day, they seemed to be gaining rather a lot of interest from other enthusiasts, photographers, keepers and even arachnophobes who were consciously working on overcoming their fears. This was a bit of a revelation for me & definitely a motivation to do more! I took it to Twitter as well and began posting there too, where I ended up meeting a lot of arachnology folk who were either studying towards or already active in the field I had always quietly dreamed of being involved in myself. Actually working with and researching spiders.
Then look at her lovely spider nook! It’s like fantasy land!
I’m not too jealous, though. I look at that and see a heck of a lot of maintenance work, and also sadness — most spiders aren’t that long-lived, so there’s always death among the beloved horde. Also, this would be a terrifying time to be at the start of a science career. Stay strong, Ms Francis!
I know that I need a haircut, and I was losing my voice here, and that this Matt Powell character is an awful little pipsqueak who doesn’t deserve any attention, but I wanted to throw together a little video because I was bemused by the fact that he was using those claims about aliens by Wickramasinghe to condemn all of evolutionary since. When he started incredulously yelling that “THIS IS WHAT EVOLUTION TEACHES,” that squid piggy-backed on asteroids to populate the planet, I just had to point out that this is most definitely not what evolution teaches, and that it was plain bad science.
I think I’m far more pissed off at those phonies affiliated with panspermia, and their long-running infiltration of the science establishment, than I am with a not-very-bright loudmouthed kid babbling about Jesus.
And if I’m mad at those wackos, you can’t imagine how furious I get with those frauds promoting evolutionary psychology.
It’s dead over there. There are a few people maintaining the grounds and the building, but it’s sad how quiet the science building is.
The spiders are loving it, though!
Today, I make good on that threat. Did you think I’d chicken out?
It’s a spider abdomen, but not the whole spider, so I hope it’s OK. I just love the muted but intricate pattern — spiders have a lot of style, you know.
Anyway, I threw another volley of spider photos on Patreon and Instagram and iNaturalist, if you want more context.