30 April 2013

Flame-knee, Graysmoke, Hobo

Audax jumping spider. See page 200

Chapter 13: Mystaceus, a jumping spider

page 199 (marginal note): approximately 110 families of spiders. In Field Notes from a Hidden City, Esther Woolfson delights in the names given to various species:
Who could fail to be entranced by the Cloud-living, the Dew-drop, or the Garden-ghost spider? Who could resist the allure of the Flame-knee spider or the Fireleg, the Graysmoke, the Purple-bloom, the Red-bloom, the Filmydome, the Starburst or the Rose. Is there anyone who, on hreading the names of the Robber Baron Cave meshweaver, the Hobo, the Government Canyon Bat Cave meshweaver, the Tuscon recluse doesn't hear the score of a spaghetti western...?
Spiders are often among the first animals to colonise new habitats.

page 202: memory. Some scientists speculate that the way the brain records and remembers movement in space may be the basis of all memory.


This is fourteenth in a new series of notes and comments on chapters in The Book of Barely Imagined Beings. It appears around the time of the US publication, and adds to an earlier series that appeared around UK publication.

1 comment:

Personal Trainer Girl Putney said...

The colours are just so vivid, what a very beautiful thing (although I'm not sure I'd be saying that if I actually saw it)!