Straya!

[JimC]

This may concern 9B a little, but here is a tale of a girl who nurses sick spiders back to health...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-31/ ... a/12507240

Townsville resident Elina Walsh has been recognised by animal rights group PETA Australia for her efforts in rescuing and rehabilitating an injured huntsman spider.

Ms Walsh was recognised with a Hero To Animals award after she hand-fed the spider (nicknamed 'Peggy') for a month, while it grew its legs back.

Ms Walsh found the creature emaciated, dehydrated, and with just two legs and suspected the arachnid had been attacked by a gecko or a bird.

"Initially my thought was she wasn't going to make it and I considered putting her out of her misery," Ms Walsh said.

"I did a quick Google search and found out that spiders can in fact regrow legs, so I thought I would give it a go.

"I am a huge animal lover, normally huntsmen aren't my favourite choice of animal but I kind of felt sorry for her and tried to help her out."

Ms Walsh spent a month feeding the spider small cockroaches with tweezers, in that time the spider was able to regrow six smaller legs which became visible and functional after a moult.

Ms Walsh has a pet tarantula and scorpion and had an idea of how to feed the huntsman.

She plans to keep Peggy in her care until the spider has one more moult and her new legs are more robust.

"Now that she has got her legs back she is able to hunt quite well on her own, but the ones that have regrown are quite a bit smaller," Ms Walsh said.

"With her next moult she should have full-sized legs again and I will be quite happy to release her outside."

(and by the way, click on the link, which has a picture of the spider heroine towards the end - a very pretty young lady indeed...)

[Sean Hayden]

--that's a feel good story. I leave spiders alone too. The spiny orb-weavers are some of my favorites.

[JimC]

I must admit, even with my zoology degree, I had no idea spiders could regrow missing legs...

[rainbow]

I must admit, even with my zoology degree, I had no idea spiders could regrow missing legs...

You feed them radium.

[JimC]

--that's a feel good story. I leave spiders alone too. The spiny orb-weavers are some of my favorites.

My father used to gently gather huntsman that had invaded our house in a handkerchief, and then release them in the park over the road. Then, one bit him through the handkerchief, so his solution after that was a little more final...

[Sean Hayden]

Fortunately there are only a handful of potentially dangerous spiders here. A much bigger problem is finding solutions to pests you can feel good about. Spiders are a feel good solution.

[NineBerry]

They can grow back their legs?

When is the next scheduled flight that leaves the planet?

[LucidFlight]

Listening to this presenter pronounce Melbourne as "Melburn" really rustled my Jimmies. Most uninitiated folks will go with "Mel-born" (as in, The Bourne Identity), which is understandable. I wonder if somebody has said "It's not pronounced Mel-born" and she's gone and totally mangled it into "Mel-burn".

[NineBerry]

Melburn (As in Sunburn) is how we pronounce it in Germany.

[pErvinalia]

Melbun.

[rainbow]

I thought it was Meal Bin.

[pErvinalia]

Probably more like Melbn. The second vowel is hardly pronounced.

[NineBerry]

https://download.media.tagesschau.de/vi ... m.h264.mp4

[Hermit]

Listening to this presenter pronounce Melbourne as "Melburn" really rustled my Jimmies. Most uninitiated folks will go with "Mel-born" (as in, The Bourne Identity), which is understandable. I wonder if somebody has said "It's not pronounced Mel-born" and she's gone and totally mangled it into "Mel-burn".

Which syllable did the presenter stress? If you put the emphasis on the first one, the second pretty much takes care of itself. The pronunciation then lies almost inevitably somewhere between NineBerry's and pErvinalia's suggestions.

Maybe the presenter had the pronunciation of Lord Melbourne - the man after whom the city was named - in mind when she pronounced it "Melburn".

ETA: The pronunciation in the tagesschau link NineBerry provided is crap. rEv's second suggestion is much better.

[pErvinalia]

There's a Melbourne, Florida. Perhaps Lak should tell us how it's said.