We went to the local Life Sciences museum yesterday.  Our group of five, ranging in ages from 11 to 45, were completely enthralled by the resident entomologist.  He brought out a tarantula and a scorpion for us to hold, if we cared to hold either.  I mean, he walked them out into the room for our little group.  It was very casual and spontaneous --no huge retaining wall or desk between us, no performance. He black-lighted the scorp to point out her awesome blue green glowing tinge and the eyes on her back.  He talked about their new and aggressive Bird Eating Tarantula which will eventually grow to be over 12 inches in diameter.  And then he got interesting.

He started talking about spiders.  I was under the impression our area has two poisonous spiders: Black Widows and Brown Recluses.  He dispelled such a notion.  He said, if I understood him correctly, that first of all, False Recluses are poisonous.  And secondly, that we've only discovered 10% of insects or arachnids on the earth.  So no one really knows all that much about what spiders we have or don't have in our area.  He spoke for a while about the similarities between venom and saliva: both digest cells, carry toxic bacteria, and have enzymes for destroying flesh.  He said if we had stingers our saliva would be considered venom.  And, apparently, only about 10% of adult humans are sensitive to Black Widow venom.

I tried to ask him if perhaps insects were evolving into new species faster than we could find them.  I'm not sure I asked my question well, or that he understood it. But it didn't take me too long to figure out he was hedging against my use of the word "evolve."  He said, "to evolve means to change" and kind of blathered a bit.   Suddenly a light bulb went on and I asked, "Every person in this group believes in evolution, so, do you think bugs are evolving quickly?"   That sorted him.  He said evolution is as slow for bugs as it is for mammals.  (I think he said that.)  But he predicts that spiders will eventually evolve to have only four legs.

Russell asked if any spiders, as with sharks, were done evolving.  Which is to say, perfect.  Mr. Entomologist did not address that directly, only blinking a bit dubiously in silence.  Then he said scientists have detected a creature they believe is at least twice bigger than Blue Whales.

For review:  Blue Whales are the biggest animals believed ever to have lived on the earth.  Their hearts are the size of Volkswagens. Blue Whales are bigger than any dinosaurs.  And scientists believe there is something living in the ocean at least twice as big.  They've never seen it.  But they've heard it.  They call it The Bloop.

We left arachnids and went to the butterfly house where my son walked around with a huge butterfly perched on his finger.  Until it hopped off his finger onto my nose.  That was cool.  We also saw bears, wolves, lemurs, and a few really cool displays.  Including an interactive map of the world.  Its round, tilts north, south, east, and west, and scrolls in and out with a spin.  So the South Africans in our group led us on a world tour.  Which was way cool.