Remember the puppy-sized spider that entomologist Piotr Naskrecki stumbled upon?
When Naskrecki said in his blog post that he caught the spider, what he meant to say was that he killed it and brought it back to a museum.
The Harvard researcher wrote a new introduction to his previous blog entry about happening upon the goliath that he hopes will teach those who have vilified, cursed and threatened him.
"You see, while talking to a reporter I explained that one of the specimens I describe in the blog had been collected and placed in a museum," Naskrecki wrote. "This, combined with my comment of having seen this species only a handful of times, triggered a tsunami of self-righteous outrage at my murderous act which, according to the most vocal individuals, is bound to drive this species to extinction. In fact, I really fear for the Smithsonian Institution, this nation's preeminent natural history collection. If a single spider collected by a scientist causes such an outrage then, surely, the 126 million specimens in its holdings will warrant burning it to the ground and crucifying all scientists working there."
Naskrecki explained that the spider is not endangered and can be purchased from a pet store for $20 to $100. He pointed out that the spider is large, thus perfect for teaching arachnid anatomy.
"There is hardly a branch of biology that does not rely on the examination of organisms' bodies (the only exception I can think of is ethology, and only some variants of it), be it for the purpose of their identification, understanding of the functions of their respiratory system, or the speed of transmission of neural signals."
"Museum collections, where specimens are preserved for future scientists, are a special, very important case. There specimens are often deposited not for a particular, clearly defined research project (such as when a geneticist examines thousands of fruit flies to measure the expression of a particular gene). Rather, collections serve as both a documentation of the current state of species composition in a particular time period or an area, or as a library of morphological and genetic diversity across a wide range of species."
Naskrecki noted in his blog that the puppy-sized spider that caused an internet sensation was "properly euthanized and preserved."
The blog addendum finished by calling out what Naskrecki considers hypocrites.
"It is very easy to fixate on an individual case of an organism being deliberately euthanized," he wrote. "We do it because it is convenient emotionally - it is much easier to feel superior when we can point a finger at somebody who does it consciously, even if for a good, justifiable reason, but we don't like to think about those trillions of animals and plants that we kill by virtue of simply going to a grocery store."
R.I.P., big guy.
