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September 8th, 2009 at 11:11 AM
David Bowie: The Spider!
“So where were the spiders,” bellowed a youthful and androgynous David Bowie on the early glam-rock masterpiece “Ziggy Stardust.” After 37 years, we may finally have the answer, as an endangered arachnid has just been donned with the name Heteropoda davidbowie.
Though over the course of Bowie’s career the singer has been considered a musical chameleon, the naming of this rare Malaysian spider is an homage to the incredibly influential breakthrough record The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. Released in 1972, the record put the then cult-favorite artist on a worldwide map, allowing for Bowie to essentially rule the decade with constant vigilance, creativity, and reinvention.
Though the spider’s large size and prominent yellow coloring may remind the more imaginative of Bowie’s flaming-red Ziggy mullet, the main reason for the spider’s naming stems from a need to raise awareness of its impending extinction. Peter Jäger, the German spider expert who discovered and named the Heteropoda davidbowie states that naming endangered species after celebrities draws attention to animal’s marginal and ephemeral status, and helps to make man aware of the adverse effect that over-development has on a fragile ecosystem.
“It is working against time,” Jäger stated to The Observer. “We are also quickly losing genetic resources that have evolved over more than 300 million years.”
Less than 500 Heteropoda davidbowie remain in their native habitats, as their woodland homes are continuously destroyed to make way for hotels and tourist attractions. Let us hope that this otherwise curious (and neat) bit of news actually serves its intended purpose.
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Comments
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September 8th, 2009 at 11:00 AM { # }
This is awesome. Also, I think there may be some kind of rock-star spider tradition. Neil Young got his last year: http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSSP19797120080512
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September 8th, 2009 at 11:00 AM { # }
that spider must either be a recent discovery, or they just changed this spider’s name: Poecilotheria hanumavilasumica
which would just eff up all their stationery. if it was oriented to their species. I know my towels have “HS” embroidered on them.
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September 8th, 2009 at 11:00 AM { # }
[...] The Spider from Mars I couldn’t believe it: a Malaysian spider has been named after David Bowie: Heteropoda davidbowie. It was a bit of curio…one of the “strangest living curiosities” (tongue-in-cheek), if you will. I can’t stand close-ups of spiders or insects (spiders aren’t bugs) so I clicked the link to the article very warily. Actually, I opened it in a new tab and then asked someone else to open it for me while I hid my face and only looked at the page once the image of the spider had been nicely scrolled past. So, that explains why no image for this post. If you want to see what this spider looks like, just click here. [...]
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