Comments | chronarchy: Eight legs and one pea brain. . .

chronarchy

Eight legs and one pea brain. . .

Sep 28, 2005 13:58

I've been reading about camel spiders recently, and I'm amused to think that I may actually want one. Except that I realize that such things should not be kept in captivity, and don't make good pets [Link to Care Instructions, not for those who don't like leggy-things]. They need a lot more care than I can give them, and I don't think I can afford ( Read more... )

bugs, pets, nature

Comments 27

(The comment has been removed)

chronarchy September 29 2005, 13:20:36 UTC

I'm not actually going to get one. I don't think that I have the facilities to take care of one.

Now, walkingsticks, I like.

perlgirlju September 28 2005, 20:18:38 UTC

I can't get you a live one, but I believe my sister in Iraq can get a carcass in a glass case from the PX if you want...

chronarchy September 29 2005, 13:21:02 UTC

No thanks. If it can't rip the head off a skink, why would I want it?

btw, I found this... singingwren September 28 2005, 21:38:47 UTC

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Re: btw, I found this... chronarchy September 29 2005, 13:19:41 UTC

That's Sooooooo what I'm talking about!

mayden_dor September 28 2005, 23:35:13 UTC

i love spiders. that one is particularly beautiful!

chronarchy September 29 2005, 13:21:19 UTC

It really is an amazing specimin :)

creature_tamer September 29 2005, 05:59:19 UTC

Despite my LJ handle, I'm not big on spiders or "bugs" in general. Snakes don't bother me so much (I'm not going to pull a Steve Irwin and start wrangling venomous ones... but if an expert says it's harmless, that's probably okay).

I'm not sure I've ever really thought about my reasons for not liking bugs. Perhaps because their small size and high agility makes them easily able to crawl on you without permission. Their anatomy (especially around the face) and body language is so different from other animals that it seems impossible to get a reading on a particular bug's intentions (is it calm, is it angry, is it going to bite?)

Possibly could be influenced by environmental factors growing up as well, since I can't think of anyone in my family who likes spiders (and can think of several who are deathly afraid of them).

chronarchy September 29 2005, 13:26:40 UTC

Bugs, in the end, are strange things. Most people don't like them.

A lot of it has to do with their incredibly strange anatomy, I do imagine. I mean, where do you categorize something like that? Science has helped by giving us a way to identify them and class them, comparatively, with other things, but our initial reaction to things like that aren't logical. . . They're "OMFGWHATISTHAT?!?!?"

It's part of the reason that shellfish aren't Kosher, I believe. I mean, shellfish are perfectly edible, and there's no reason for them to be unclean. . . Hell, crickets are Kosher. But the problem is that they can't be rationally categorized, and so they became "unclean" because they couldn't be categorized as anything.

Or so my Jewish Mysticism teacher once stated.