Techie Tally
PAROMITA PAIN
Spiders have inspired screams, Scottish kings and the World Wide Web. Techie who is mortally afraid of them was inspired enough to delve deeper into their history of evolution and natural habitats. As the Australian Museum Online at http://www.amonline.net.au/spiders/ says, "Wherever you live you are always close to a spider." This is a great virtual resource of these deft spinners. Besides the usual `must visits' of their natural habits, behaviour and seasonal activities, a very interesting section is that of the role of spiders in history.
The search engine at the bottom of the home page is cool and can throw up without the bother of going through all the pages, any info about spiders.
The http://www.amonline.net.au/spiders/culture/history.htm page asks, "What do Yoritomo, David and Robert the Bruce have in common? Spiders changed their lives ... and they went on to change the course of history!" — note the similarity in the way these creatures worked to save the lives of some of the world's greatest religious leaders and kings.
A part of the same site the http://www.amonline.net.au/spiders/culture/tarantulas.htm page is an important one as it discusses and seeks to demystify many myths about the "evil" tarantulas. "Tarantulas are the movie stars of the spider world", it says tongue-in-cheek, since anything long legged, murderous and animal in movie is generally tarantulas.
For all the spider enthusiasts out there-the staff of the museum can be emailed. So visit the http://www.amonline.net.au/spiders/staff/smith.htm for their email addresses.
And finally the page at http://www.amonline.net.au/spiders/culture/miss_muffet.htm resolves the Miss Muffet controversy. Her father was a doctor and her name was Patience whose virtues served to make her the guinea pig for many of his `spider cure alls'. Good enough reason wouldn't you say to yell when one came even remotely close?
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