The Millenium Post

Apparently, this is the 1000^th post to appear at Catalogue of Organisms. When I first started this site, over ten years ago, I don't know if I had any idea when, if ever, I would reach this point and where I would be when it happened. I probably imagined I would be thinner.

I want to thank everyone that has followed Catalogue of Organisms over the years. I particularly want to thank those readers who have supported me on Patreon: Paul Selden, Sebastian Marquez, Rob Partington, William Holz. Your contributions have meant a lot to me. Apropos of that, some news: some of my readers may recall that my employment status has been a little up in the air for a large chunk of the last couple of years (though I was able to find casual positions for some of that time). A few months ago, though, an opportunity came up to work on a project looking at insect diversity in mangroves in Hong Kong. Though it means being away from my home, my partner and my dog for a couple of years, the opportunity was too good to pass up and for the next little while I'll be based in the city of the Fragrant Harbour (especially around the port district in high summer).

So on to the next 1000 posts, then? We'll just have to see. Certainly I'm not putting stuff up here as frequently as I did in the past, when I was a carefree post-graduate student. There have been times when I've wondered if I should keep going. People far more talented and perspicacious than I have had a great deal to say elsewhere about the apparent decline of science blogging as a format, and it certainly doesn't seem to attract the audience it once did. Nevertheless, I think I'll be going for a while yet. I've noted before that this blog functions as my own means and motivation for investigating things that I might find interesting, and there's certainly no shortage of things left to investigate. And as for the health of science blogging overall: a glance to the sidebar to the right of this page reminds me that there's still a lot out there worth following. There's Deep Sea News, there's Small Things Considered, Bug Eric, Tetrapod Zoology, Letters from Gondwana, Synapsida, Beetles in the Bush, and so many more. If you don't already know these sites, check them out!

For my part, the main indicator I see as to whether people are reading anything here is when people leave comments. A big thank you again to those who have contributed over the years. I'm needy, and need validation... And in that light, I'd like to specially ask my readers to comment on their general feelings (if any) about Catalogue of Organisms. Has there been anything you've particularly liked about the site over the years? Any favourite posts? Anything you'd like to see going forward? And once again...

The Mongolian Death Worm

This would have been a comment on a recent post by Darren Naish at Tetrapod Zoology on the behaviour of amphisbaenians, but the commenting system they have at Scientific American these days means that any comment on a post more than a couple of days old will never be seen by anyone. As such, I'm posting it up here:

PhilJTerry's comment in response to Darren's post: "As I love introducing cryptozoology into the conversation wherever possible - are Amphisbaenians a likely influence for the Mongolian Death Worm? Can they live in desert environments?"

Image from National Geographic.

For those not already aware, the "Mongolian death worm" or "olgoi-khorkhoi" is a supposedly incredibly dangerous animal found in the deserts of Mongolia. It's first mention in Western literature came in Roy Chapman Andrew's (1926) On the Trail of Ancient Man. Andrews heard about the animal in a meeting with Mongolian officials:

Then the Premier asked that, if it were possible, I should capture for the Mongolian government a specimen of the allergorhai-horhai. I doubt whether any of my scientific readers can identify this animal. I could, because I had heard of it often. None of those present ever had seen the creature, but they all firmly believed in its existence and described it minutely. It is shaped like a sausage about two feet long, has no head nor legs and is so poisonous that merely to touch it means instant death. It lives in the most desolate parts of the Gobi Desert, whither we were going. To the Mongols it seems to be what the dragon is to the Chinese. The Premier said that, although he had never seen it himself, he knew a man who had and had lived to tell the tale. Then a Cabinet Minister stated that "the cousin of his late wife's sister" had also seen it. I promised to produce the allergorhai-horhai if we chanced to cross its path, and explained how it could be seized by means of long steel collecting forceps; moreover, I could wear dark glasses, so that the disastrous effects of even looking at so poisonous a creature would be neutralized. The meeting adjourned with the best of feeling; for we had a common interest in capturing the allergorhai-horhai.

Since then, there have been a number of expeditions have been conducted in search of the Premier's "allergorhai-horhai"; all have come up fruitless. Various opinions have been expressed as to what the stories may have been based on, with the most popular suggestions being some sort of reptile (Darren says in his response to the above comment on the original post that he "could buy that the stories are based on exaggerated tales of erycine boas or something"). For my part, I suspect that the question of the 'original identity' of the Mongolian death worm may be a futile one. When I first heard Andrews' account, I was not reminded of an amphisbaenian or a boa; I was immediately put in mind of a drop bear.

I feel almost certain that Andrews was being told a local tall tale, a popular joke at the expense of visiting travellers. The nature of Andrews' response to the officials suggests that he was in on the joke and more than happy to play his part in communicating it. Admittedly, other accounts of the Mongolian death worm have been recorded at more recent dates. And in the same way, I've never seen a drop bear myself, but I can assure you that my cousin did once and got the fright of his life. Be careful. They're out there.

Bizarre 'alien corpse' has idiots stumped

I know we've all become more familiar with 'mystery monster' corpse stories in the last few years, but I think they may have reached a new nadir. Fairfax featured a story today titled 'Bizarre 'alien corpse' discovered in Russia has experts stumped'. This is the corpse in question (image from linked article):

Supposedly, no-one (including a quoted 'biologist') has the slightest idea what this is, and the find has been sent off for extensive testing. Well, I don't know if I can claim to be any kind of expert myself, but even I can recognise the fricking Parrot of King Charles I when I see it.

Quick Quiz

Recently, this has been seen doing the rounds on the interweb:

My first thought: clever. My second thought: hang on, there's something wrong here. Anyone care to guess what it was?

The Source

I was taking some photos today of the new house to send to my parents in New Zealand, when I thought I might take some extras to put up here and demonstrate the current state of my office. You never know, someone might be interested. I'm somewhat anachronistic in that I do still largely work from printed material rather than pdfs, and the ghosts of a thousand trees probably haunt my workspace.

The person who is able to identify the most of the books visible in these photos wins the grand prize of having identified the most books in these photos. Of course, most of my reference collection is not quite so photogenic:

Most of my papers lurk in large filing cabinets, while the boxes contain copies of particularly lengthy papers and out-of-print or otherwise unobtainable books that I haven't yet gotten ring-bound like the ones on the shelves.

Hat-tip to Darren Naish, of whom this post is something of a blatant rip-off.

Perception

I thought this was worth sharing with anyone who hasn't yet seen it:

It's from The Optimistic Painting Blog, via Prerogative of Harlots.

I Hate Everything Right Now

For the last week, I have been caught in the grip of a particularly vindictive cold. Which is why, when I thought of this particularly painful little pun earlier, I didn't allow it to sink back into the depths of drollery hell like I should have, but decided to inflict it upon the larger world. Why should I suffer alone?

A patient is being given some test results by a doctor. The doctor looks at his notes and says, "I'm sorry to tell you this, but your lungs appear to be infested with Mesozoic mammals". Aghast, the patient asks hesistantly, "You don't mean...?" "I'm afraid so", replies the doctor. "You have multituberculosis".

Hello to my Chinese Readers

A little over a week ago, I got an e-mail from Paul Selden saying that he was on a trip to China and had discovered that Catalogue of Organisms is seemingly on the list of sites blocked by the Chinese filtering system. Is mediocre rambling on biology that much of a threat to the Communist Party?

Still, with that information in mind, I'd like to extend a warm welcome to any readers from China. And say how privileged I feel that you have dedicated your hacking skills to reading my posts, instead of just looking up porn.

If you were looking for porn and just came here by accident, no need for disappointment. Enjoy this completely gratuitous photo of a penis:


Left lateral view of penis of Megalopsalis linnaei, from Taylor 2008.

Quick Question: What Would You Bring Back?

I just came across this post at a blog called Zygoma that asks the question: if you could bring any organism back from extinction, what would you choose and why? My first choice would be a stylophoran such as Cothurnocystis in order to resolve the anatomy of those very confusing fossils. Close runners-up would be Helicoplacus (for the same reason as Cothurnocystis) or Mazothairos (for the sheer glory of Awesome) or Homo erectus (in a probably futile attempt to shake that nasty idea of human exceptionalism held by too many people). Or maybe I should just get myself some Tullimonstrum, grow them up to enormous sizes and release them into Scottish lakes.

So what would you choose and why?

Name That Bug #1

One downside to no longer being a student is that I no longer have quite so much time to spend on blog posts (well, not if I want to be able to justify my salary), so I'm putting up an image ID challenge instead, and I'll see if I can make this a regular feature. Besides, I've noticed that these tend to be popular at other people's sites, and the reader count in my right sidebar has been edging tantalisingly close to 100 for the last few months. I want to see if I can finally hit the triple digits (the fact that I've never been able to work out exactly what that number represents is irrelevant).

If this works well, I'll try and make it a regular thing. But first up, let's start with a relatively simple one (indeed, if Aydin's reading this, I may ask him to hold off for a bit because he'll probably recognise it instantly):



Tell me what it is, and tell me something about the significance of this specimen.

UPDATE: The identity of this image is given here. The image comes from here.

Taxonomy Trivia Quiz #2: You've Come a Long Way, Baby

If there are any of you who remember the last time I presented a quiz - don't worry, this one will probably be easier. But first, a little background (which may be familiar to some of you):

In 1887, Othniel Charles Marsh described a pair of large fossil horns as Bison alticornis, placing them in the same genus as the modern bison. As it turned out, the horns were not from a bison, they were from a dinosaur, either Triceratops or a close relative (the 'Bison' alticornis remains are not extensive enough to be sure). 'Bison' alticornis is just one of many cases of species originally assigned to genera to which they are no longer regarded as closely related. In some cases, such as the example I've just given, the original author did not have the material available that would have allowed a more accurate placement (ceratopsid fossils combining both dinosaurian characteristics and horns would not be described until a year later, by Marsh himself; at the time he described the alticornis horns, the possibility that they might have come from some sort of gigantic lizard probably never entered the equation). Sometimes, the concept associated with the genus name was simply far broader than its present circumscription (Linnaeus' original concept of Vespertilio, for instance, covered all bats). And sometimes, the characters regarded as defining a genus were different from the characters used today (Linnaeus' Falco was defined as carnivorous birds with a feathered head, hooked beak and without a covering of bristles at the base of the beak; it therefore included members of modern Accipitridae as well as Falconidae).

Below are fifteen examples of species names that are now placed some distance taxonomically from their original (or early) genera. Some are still recognised as valid species, some have been synonymised with other species. What I want you to do is tell me what these animals really are:



1. The 'ciliate' Vorticella cinctum.



2. The 'snail' Helix smaragdus.



3. The 'nautilus' Nautilus radicula.



4. The 'harvestman' Phalangium cancroides.



5. The 'crab' Cancer pulex.



6. The 'starfish' Asterias bifida.



7. The 'sea cucumber' Holothuria priapus.



8. The 'stickleback' Gasterosteus volitans.



9. The 'condor' Vultur fulvus.



10. The 'hoopoe' Upupa eremita.



11. The 'anteater' Myrmecophaga striata.



12. The 'lemur' Lemur simiasciurus.



13. The 'mouse' Mus canguru.



14. The 'otter' Lutra minima.



15. The 'civet' Viverra cancrivora.

And as a bonus point:



16. The 'slug' Limax lanceolatus.

Winners win the right to say "I won".

Picture Credits:

Vorticella used before, but original source page appears to have vanished.
Helix pomatia by Janek Pfeiffer.
Nautilus from here.
Phalangium opilio from Morten Hansen.
Cancer productus by Dave Cowles.
Asterias forbesi from here.
Holothuria edulis from here.
Gasterosteus aculeatus from here.
Vultur gryphus from here.
Upupa epops by Claudio Torresani.
Myrmecophaga tridactyla by Christopher Reiger.
Lemur catta from here.
Mus musculus from here.
Lutra lutra by David Pape.
Viverra zibetha by Robert Sterndale.
Limax maximus by Matthew Bulbert.

Musical Interlude: The Nothing-is-Funnier-than-Repression Edition

Yours truly has just spent an evening at the theatre watching a show by the Kransky Sisters, and I can confirm that they are just as funny on stage as they are on the television (or, I suppose, on the wireless).

For those of you not familiar with the strange, morbid tone of the Kranskys, here's a sample. This is one of their older performances - Arva (the one playing the tuba) has since left the group. According to the other sisters, Arva received a scholarship to join the Hornbell Military Marching Band, and no longer tours with her sisters because "all the meals are included with the army" (and the camouflage uniforms hide all the spills). Fortunately, a fourth sister, Dawn, has left her job as a part-time trolley librarian in the local hospital to join the group. Dawn had been living in the neighbour's laundry, where she kept her collection of cane toad skins that she had flattened in the clothes-wringer.

I Can't Believe I'm Falling For A Meme

...but here are the rules, as passed on by Greg Laden:

Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you.
First 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

Except here's the thing: one of the first books that came to mind was one that I can't even remember the title of. It was a huge book (well, huge to a smallish child) that the local library had when I was about ten, probably on South American wildlife, but I just remember these huge double-page dioramas of such things as South American palaeofauna - litopterns, notoungulates and astrapotheres, oh my! - or army ants on the move. Like I said, wouldn't have a clue what it was called now. I'm not even sure that I knew it at the time - it was just the really big book with the cool pictures of Macrauchenia. Similar issues of memory surround that big book on birds that I used to spend hours looking at every time I visited my great-grandmother.

So, if I obmit those ones, here's my list:

1 - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Yes, it had to be in there somewhere. And to follow on from an earlier meme, I can now say that I've read all the Austen novels. Pride and Prejudice isn't necessarily the best - I'd say that that title probably belongs to Persuasion, while Northanger Abbey deserves a lot more credit than it's usually given, but I will admit that P & P is probably the most memorable.

2 - Peace on Earth by Stanislaw Lem. It was a toss-up between this one and Solaris. I suspect that only a small proportion of Lem's books have been translated into English, and those that have been are scattered far and wide and almost impossible to find, but every time you do find one you can feel guaranteed that it's an absolute gem. I'd also recommend The Cyberiad.

3 - Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Again, with an honourable mention to Galapagos.

4 - The Kuia and the Spider by Patricia Grace. I cited this children's book in an earlier post. What I didn't mention there was that The Kuia and the Spider was actually a revolutionary experience for me as a young child, and one that I'll confess I didn't appreciate right away - it was the first time I was introduced to the idea that a story could have an ending without having a conclusion.

5 - Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake. I read this book a lot when I was in high school. It still shows through every time I write something.

6 - The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. I hated this book. We had to read it in high school - and watch the stoopid film adaptation. Bored me to tears. But you know what - almost everything else we read in high school English is long forgotten, but I don't think I'm ever going to forget Hemingway's musings on the true natures of triumph and futility.

7 - The Book of Lost Tales by J. R. R. Tolkein. I'm going to say something that will probably result in my geek status being instantly revoked - Tolkein's not really that great. But there's something about the experience of Tolkein, the whole idea of all the hours of scholarship hidden behind the finished product, that somehow ends up imbuing the whole with something far, far more than the cardboard characters, clunky prose and abominable poetry. The Book of Lost Tales, a collection of early versions of what would end up becoming The Silmarillion (and, offhand, written in a more paganistic style than the more Catholic morality of the later work) are something of a glimpse behind the magician's curtain. And the dragons are mechanical.

8 - Die Weberknechte der Erde: Systematisches Bearbeitung der Bisher Bekannten Opiliones by Carl-Friedrich Roewer. Again, I'll never forget it for all the wrong reasons. I don't know that I can say I've really read "Die Weberknechte" - I don't think that even people who actually speak German can understand Roewer. But just try typing "Roewer" into the search box for this blog to get some idea of how much his shadow hangs over my professional career.

9 - The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. What more need I say?

10 - Perelandra by C. S. Lewis. With the benefit of hindsight and greater maturity, I know that it's as subtle as a half-brick. But some bits of this book genuinely creeped me out when I was a kid.

11 - Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami. I got handed this book to read as part of my Japanese Culture class when I was in Fukuoka. I think that by the end of the day, I'd been through it twice. And it's the only work of popular fiction I've known to reference Synthetoceras and Cranioceras (even if the process of re-translating a Japanese transliteration of the original names made them all but unrecognisable - I think Cranioceras became "kuranokeras").

12 - Alice Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll. Together with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and bits (but not all) of the Sylvie and Bruno books, I couldn't get enough Carroll.

13 - Paradise Lost by John Milton. You always remember Paradise Lost. Milton later tried to remove the Devil's triumph by writing Paradise Regained. He failed.

14 - The Blue Mountain by Meir Shalev. Are the stories true? Are they lies? Does it really matter?

15 - The Just-So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. Finally, one of the most memorable of all. "He was wild and he was woolly, and his pride was inordinate, and he danced on an outcrop in the middle of Australia". "I am the cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me". "The great grey-green Limpopo river, all set about with fever trees". The inimatable rhythm of Kipling's stories is truly unforgettable.

Completely Frivolous Taxonomy Quiz

For no good reason, here's a set of trivia questions about biological taxonomy and nomenclature. Excuse the possible zoological bias - I am a zoologist, after all. How many can you answer? They start off easy, but (hopefully) they get trickier.

1. Current rank-based taxonomy is based on seven primary ranks. Which two were not used by Linnaeus?

2. What are the five codes of biological nomenclature currently in action?

3. Name one group of organisms not governed by any of these five codes.

4. What is the earliest publication using binomial nomenclature to be currently recognised by the ICZN?

5. When and what was the earliest formal zoological nomenclatural code proposed? What was the earliest botanical code?

6. What do the letters 'VP' and 'AL' mean as part of a bacterial name?



7. Kathablepharis and Katablepharis are different spellings for the name of the same organism. Each is the one spelling that must be used, while the other spelling is invalid. Explain.

8. The name Oedicnemidae was published by Gray in 1840. The name Burhinidae was published by Mathews in 1912. Both refer to the same family, for which the valid name is Burhinidae. Why?

9. If two or more taxa have the same name, and fall under the scope of the same code, then their names are homonyms, and only one can be valid. Pupa affinis Rossmaessler 1839, Pupa affinis Aradas & Maggione 1843 and Pupa affinis (Adams 1855) are all names for animals, but they are not considered homonyms. How is this possible?



Picture credits (from top to bottom): Tweedle Dum from Alice Through the Looking Glass, via here.

Satan in Hell from L'Inferno, via here.

The Ship of Fools by Hieronymus Bosch, via here.

Of Taxonomy and Rabbis

A couple of weeks ago, Mike Keesey brought up a point where, it seems, the ICZN doesn't actually say what everyone has always thought it says. The tone of the ensuing discussion reminds me of a story that a Jewish friend of mine once told me. It concerns a disagreement that the famous rabbi Akiba ben Joseph* once had with a group of other rabbis on a point of law (hush up if you've heard this one before).

*Well, to be honest, I'm not sure if it was actually Akiba that was the subject of the story. It might have been some other influential figure. For the sake of maintaining a narrative, let's just say it was Akiba.

Anywho, the argument had apparently been raging for some time - Akiba holding out for one interpretation, all the other rabbis in the room holding to the other - and had evidently reached something of an impasse. Eventually, frustrated at his failure to get his point across successfully, Akiba exclaimed that if he was in the right, then the tree standing at the door of the synagogue should uproot itself and walk away. Amazingly, this is exactly what happened at that very moment. But the other rabbis were unimpressed by this miracle - after all, they demanded to know, what would a mere tree know of the Holy Law? Akiba then made another oath, that his correctness should be demonstrated by the river running outside the synagogue turning back on itself, and flowing uphill. Again, the river did this very thing (and according to the story, it still does today). But once more the other rabbis only scoffed - what does a river know of the Holy Law?



His frustration at a peak, Akiba appealed to the highest authority he knew of, exclaiming that if he was in the right, G-D himself would speak in his favour. And at the point, the clouds opened, a light shone down from the sky, and a great voice could be heard - "Rabbi Akiba is right!" Hearing this voice, the other rabbis turned to face the heavens, and spoke as one:

"And as for you - stay out of this!"

Further Details

Not so long ago, I remarked that I could be found on Facebook under my own name. I have since had it pointed out that as "Christopher Taylor" is hardly the most individual of names out there, I couldn't really be found amongst the 500+ other Christopher Taylors. So alternatively, if you want to find me, try using my e-mail (gerarus at westnet.com.au). Or, funnily enough, searching for "Opiliones" brings me up as one of the results too.

Apropos of none of which, but because I needed to fill out the post somehow, here is a Flight of the Conchords clip:

Six Random Things

To be honest, I decided a little while ago that I wasn't going to do memes any more, but when not just one but two people ask you to do something it becomes harder to say no. So I'll do it, but I won't tag anyone else to. Here are are six random things concerning yours truly:

(1) I am really, really bad with cars. I haven't driven for ages, and I get nervous even sitting in one. One of my friends once barred me from sitting in the front passenger seat of her car because the sight of my knuckles turning white as I gripped grimly onto the door handle would make her nervous. There is no problem with my driving ability - get me out on the open road and I'm fine - it's the other traffic on the road that makes me nervous.

(2) One of the names I considered calling this site when I first started it was "The Other 99%". When I had been a student, a fellow student and I had joked that medicine must be incredibly dull compared to biology, because how on earth could anyone stand to restrict themselves to a single species when there were over three million to play around with? It wasn't until after I'd started this site that I discovered that it was fortunate that I hadn't gone with that choice. Other taxonomy-related names I considered (but which were both taken) were "The Name of the Rose" and "Rosa canina" (because that is the name of the rose).

(3) I have got to be the world's most spectacularly shitty drawer. I have no skill in visual arts whatsoever - why do you think that, even though I've been running this site for over a year and a half, I still haven't developed any sort of banner for it? This lack of drawing skill is a serious impediment for working in taxonomy, where one does have to prepare illustrations as part of taxon descriptions, after all. Roll on the day when I have enough funds available to pay an illustrator to do my drawings for me.

(4) I left New Zealand after my last relationship there ended spectacularly badly. The break-up was not actually the reason for leaving New Zealand (though it was probably an indirect factor in my losing my last job there), but it certainly didn't make the decision to do so any more difficult.

(5) Some time ago, upon taking note of the ever increasing stack of near-untouched articles I was accumulating, I decided to put a hiatus on getting more articles unless necessary until I had made a significant dent in processing the ones that I already had. Instead, I began noting down articles to obtain later in a notebook, planning on getting them when I had gotten through enough of the ones that I already had. It's now six years later, and I've got a pile of six notebooks sitting in my office filled cover to cover with titles of articles to get "at a later date".

(6) The last random thing is a trivia question for you lot - it's not really about me, but it may give some insight into the way I think. Here's the question:

It was recently mentioned on the radio that a new movie featuring the character of Sherlock Holmes is currently in production, and the role of Sherlock Holmes is to be played by Robert Downey Junior. Why did I think this was funny?

Salticid Spider Bollocks

The "information sheet" below was forwarded to my e-mail this afternoon. The person who forwarded it to me did so as a joke, but apparently it has taken some people in:

Really terrifying

Three women turned up at hospitals over a 5-day period, all with the same symptoms.
Fever, chills, and vomiting, followed by muscular collapse, paralysis and finally, death..

There were no outward signs of trauma.

Autopsy results showed toxicity in the blood. These women did not know each other and seemed to have nothing in common. It was discovered, however, that they had all visited the same Restaurant (Olive Garden , Western Cape ) within days of their deaths. The Health Department descended on the restaurant , shutting it down. The food, water, and air conditioning were all inspected and tested, to no avail.
The big break came when a waitress at the restaurant was rushed to the hospital with similar symptoms. She told doctors that she had been on vacation, and had only went to the restaurant to pick up her check.

She did not eat or drink while she was there, but had used the restroom
That is when one toxicologist, remembering an article he had read, drove out to the restaurant, went into the restroom and lifted the toilet seat

Under the seat, out of normal view, was a small spider. The spider was captured and brought back to the lab, where it was determined to be the Two-Striped Telamonia (Telamonia dimidiata), so named because of its reddened flesh color. This spider's venom is extremely toxic, but can take several days to take effect. They live in cold, dark, damp climates, and toilet rims provide just the right atmosphere..

Several days later a lawyer from Jacksonville showed up at a hospital emergency room. Before his death, he told the doctor, that he had been away on business, had taken a flight from Indonesia , changing planes in Singapore , before returning home He did NOT visit (Olive Garden), while there. He did (as did all of the other victims) have what was determined to be a puncture wound, on his right buttock. Investigators discovered that the flight he was on had originated in India .
The Civilian Aeronautics Board (CAB) ordered an immediate inspection of the toilets of all flights from India and discovered the Two-Striped Telamonia (Telamonia dimidiata) spider's nests on 4 different planes!
It is now believed that these spiders can be anywhere in the country.
So please, before you use a public toilet, lift the seat to check for spiders. It can save your life!




And please pass this on to everyone you care about.

Aww, look! It's a salticid! Innit cute?

I find it fitting that I am writing this post in Australia - which, as we all know, is the spiritual home of all toilet-seat lurking spiders. Not surprisingly, this particular story is total bollocks. And according to Snopes, it's ancient bollocks - this story has been floating about the interweb since 1992, albeit with the occasional variation to where exactly it's supposed to have taken place. Snopes also notes that the "Civil Aviation Board" referred to garbledly in the e-mail hasn't been in existence since 1984. I noticed the problem with "They live in cold, dark, damp climates, and toilet rims provide just the right atmosphere.." Ummm, a toilet-seat isn't a damp climate at all - quite the opposite - and any spider wanting to occupy the damp space under the rim is going to want to have invested in some scuba gear any time anyone flushes.

I'll put this simply ('scuse caps) - THERE ARE VERY FEW SPIDERS THAT CAN HARM YOU. Of those spiders that can harm you (and Telamonia dimidiata - scroll down a bit if you click the link - ain't one of them), even fewer of them are likely to come into contact with you. "Toxic" is not necessarily the same as "dangerous" - most toxic animals such as venomous snakes and spiders are far more likely to discretely get out of your way rather than attack. You probably won't even know they were there.

More Juvenilia

Chris M at The Echinoblog has put up a list of odd things that sit in his laboratory, and notes that people look askance at the pile of toilet paper (a vital tool in drying specimens). Well, I can top that:



K-Y jelly is actually fantastic stuff for preparing temporary slide mounts. It's transparent, it holds things in place reasonably well (though it does heat up and start flowing a bit if you leave it under the light for too long) and it's water-soluble, so you can just take a specimen preserved in alcohol out of its vial and put it straight onto the slide then return it straight to the vial when finished without needing to wash or prepare it in any way. Putting the specimen in alcohol on a concave slide is still preferable, because alcohol is more optically clear than K-Y, but alcohol won't hold the specimen at an angle in any way if you need to look at the specimen in a particular position. Seeing as how this is invertebrate systematics we're talking about, the thing I most commonly need to look at on a slide are reproductive organs. Which leads to an actual exchange that took place:

Colleague: "Why do you have K-Y jelly in your office?"

Me: "I use it for mounting... I mean, I put genitalia in it... Crap."

Offhand, I have also now discovered that if you do an image search for K-Y jelly, it pays to have the SafeSearch option turned on.

Ye Gods I'm Immature

Sometimes when naming a species, it pays to be careful...

In 1954, Roewer described a new species of harvestman named Metagagrella mysoreana (so named, I assume, because it came from Mysore). Metagagrella has since been synonymised with the older genus name Psathyropus, but most of the appropriate new combinations have not yet appeared in print. I was just entering in names for the Psathyropus section of the Palpatores nomenclator, which requires me to form said new combinations. However, because Psathyropus is a masculine name, I had to correct species name genders.

Yep.

Psathyropus mysoreanus.

The fact that I giggled when I realised shows just how much of a child I am.