David Bowie and the Spider from Earth is great public relations
Public Relations kudos to German spider expert Peter Jäger who upon discovering his 200th species of arachnid, a particularly rare specimen in Malaysia, named it after rock legend David Bowie – instantly bestowing the ferocious looking, yet harmless hairy to stardom.
And maximum respect for his honesty too; while it would have been easy to claim to be a fan of the 1972 album ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars’, Jäger actually admitted that he named the spider Heteropoda davidbowie to guarantee it the same kind of coverage that fluffier and altogether friendlier endangered animals enjoy.
Had he claimed to be a fan, some cynical news editors would have wondered if he was just chasing a headline. By admitting it he actually garnered more respect and better coverage.
Only yesterday I was writing about how the WWF had blundered with a crass 9/11 video that has endangered its reputation. In part of that post I needed to find an endangered species for a particular part of the post – and quick check came up with ‘Giant Panda’ in second place. There were no spiders, although in our house the bigger and more hairy they are the more endangered they are if they startle me!
The headline writers had fun ‘David Bowie spider not from Mars’, ‘David Bowie and the Spider from Earth’ and are rather less inspired: ‘David Bowie has new species of spider named after him’
As an aside, I was at One Arm Point, at the very tip of Cape Leveque in the Dampier Peninsula of north Western Australia back in 2001 on something of a busman’s holiday from Thames Valley Police with West Australian Police that saw me explore much of the Kimberley with the boys and girls in light blue and khaki.
Snakes and spiders abounded and a night trip to the ‘long drop’ toilet was fraught with considerably more dangerous than our hunt for Cambodian drug runners in the nearby Sunday Straits (that is another story!).
Anyway, caught short in the small hours I headed out to the toilet and carefully swept my Maglite back and forth lest there be anything creeping, crawling or slithering my way. The same check was made of the toilet and satisfied I sat down and got on with business, admired the starry skies...
When I turned the torch toward the latched latrine door I found it had clicked shut with a huge Huntsman Spider perched on the very handle I needed to use. Bravely I knocked it off with the torch, dropping the torch and sending that rolling out of reach as I leapt about desperately hoping the spider would not attack (they give a bee sting like bite you know!). I escaped unscathed, but drank less beer before bed thereafter.