Spider that’s Syd vicious
QUESTION Why is the Sydney funnel-web spider so much more dangerous than other funnel-web spiders?
FUNNEL-WEB spiders are one of the most well-known and feared families of spiders in the world. This is because these fearsome looking arachnids include the Sydney funnel-web (Atrax robustus), one of a handful of spiders capable of inflicting a fatal bite to humans.
Most funnel-web species are venomous to some extent, their venom containing a complex group of peptides called delta-hexatoxins, but the male Sydney funnel-web has evolved a specific variation called robustoxin (d-atracotoxin-ar1) that severely and similarly affects the nervous systems of humans and other primates.
Atrax robustus is the only member of the family known to have caused human fatalities. The northern tree funnel web, hadronyche formidabilis, is also considered to contain a potentially lethal venom. It is a very isolated jungle species and not considered a threat to humans.
Funnel-web spiders are included in the group of spiders known as mygalomorphs, along with tarantulas, mouse spiders and trapdoor spiders. They are also known as ‘ancient’, ‘primitive’ or ‘old world’ spiders as these spiders were the first spiders to roam the Earth, in the late Jurassic period, 150million years ago.
Funnel-web spiders are named for the shape of their home. This name is misleading as their home is constructed in more of a wishbone shape rather than a funnel.
They are stocky spiders, normally with a shiny black cephalothorax. Despite having eight eyes, their eyesight is relatively poor, but they are very sensitive to vibration and use that to detect prey. They are ambush hunters, mostly living in silk-lined burrows in the ground and usually concealed under rocks, tree stumps, or boulders, while a few species live beneath bark in trees.
While the venom of the entire family is often toxic, to a varying extent, to humans and other primates, it does not affect other mammals. It is thought that these delta hexatoxins that evolved to kill insects were modified over time as a protective mechanism, particularly in the males that leave their burrows for longer periods to find a mate and are therefore more likely to encounter predators.
The fact that Sydney funnel-web delta-hexatoxins are lethal to humans appears to be an unlucky accident caused by some quirk of primate biochemistry not shared with other groups of mammals.
Dr Ian Smith, Cambridge.
QUESTION Did Kenny Rogers discover The Eagles?
NO, but he had a hand in their formation by giving Eagles cofounder Don Henley his first record contract and introducing him to the LA music scene.
In 1969 Henley had a chance meeting with the country music star in Dallas, Texas. At that time Rogers was riding high with his band First Edition, famous for their psychedelic masterpiece Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In).
As Rogers recalled: ‘This little kid came up and said, “Hello Mr Rogers, I’m Don Henley and I’m with a group called Felicity, and we’re doing a show tonight and we’d love to have you come see us.”’ Rogers was so charmed that he said yes.
Bowled over, he brought Felicity to live with him in LA in June 1970. Rogers helped sign the band to Amos Records. Under their new name Shiloh, they recorded a selftitled album produced by Rogers.
It was a decent but commercially unsuccessful country rock album, the standout track on which was Simple Little Down Home Rock And Roll Love Song For Rosie. Shiloh played the local club circuit but soon disbanded. In 1971 Linda Ronstadt was looking for a touring band. She’d heard Henley play drums in a style of ‘country mixed with rock in a way that didn’t compromise either genre’, and signed him up. She also hired guitarist Glenn Frey, who played with her partner at the time, JD Souther, in a group called Longbranch Pennywhistle.
Henley and Frey roomed together and quickly recognised their harmonic blend and songwriting skills, so they decided to put a band together. Ronstadt suggested they get former Flying Burrito Brother Bernie Leadon to play guitar, and producer John Boylan suggested that they get Randy Meisner on bass, and so The Eagles were formed.
Harvey Sharpe, Chelmsford, Essex.
QUESTION Who coined the phrase, ‘Time flies when you’re having fun’?
TIME flies when you’re having fun, sometimes rendered as tempus fugit, is a popular idiom referring to the phenomenon that time appears to pass more quickly when you’re doing something you enjoy. In English, the idea has been traced back to 1386 in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Prologue to the Clerk’s Tale: ‘For thogh we slepe, or wake, or rome, or ryde, Ay fleeth the tyme; it nyl no man abyde.’
One of the best-known examples is Shakespeare’s 1609 poem A Lover’s Complaint: ‘The swiftest hours, observed as they flew.’
A century on, Alexander Pope borrowed the phrase for his Messiah (1712): ‘Swift fly the years, and rise the expected morn!’ The precise phrase was first used in 1939 in George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s play The Man Who Came To Dinner.
The Latin phrase tempus fugit might be considered the ultimate origin. It comes from Virgil’s Georgics (29BC). In Latin, he wrote ‘fugit inreparabile tempus’, meaning ‘it escapes, irretrievable time,’ an elegant version of what came to become a very popular idiom.
Tempus fugit is typically employed as an admonition against sloth and procrastination. It is often featured on sundials. I enjoy H(enry) Austin Dobson’s rebuttal: ‘Time goes, you say? Ah, no! Alas, time stays, we go.’
Maggie Pincher, St Ives, Cornwall.
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