Sunday, September 23, 2012

The two biggest Daddy Longlegs you will ever see...

...can be found atop the Seattle Center Armory! They're not exactly real, but they will last a really long time, I'm sure, and, if they're lucky, maybe they will get to reproduce and we will return to the Cretaceous period where arthropods were enormous. Here's to hoping.

Here's a top-down view of the roof:

Here's what you might see if you were standing on the roof:


More information about the artist and his project can be found at his personal website: http://marlinpeterson.com/ (I stole the images from his website).

But for now, I will just clarify that I am talking about the United States' daddy longlegs (family Opiliones). In Nova Scotia, the UK, Ireland, and Newfounland, the name "daddy longlegs" is commonly used to describe crane flies (family Tipulidae). Elsewhere, "daddy longlegs" is used to describe cellar spiders (family Pholcidae). So confusing! This is why we need taxonomic names!

In any case, I think I know whom to hire when I want to paint my future roof.

Happy Sunday,
Chel"needs to stop posting random things on this blog"sea
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3 comments:

  1. Kate CulhaneSeptember 23, 2012 at 9:45 PM

    My mom showed me this! Proud to be from Washington. Also, I like how he signed his name...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rich HarringtonSeptember 30, 2012 at 6:33 PM

    This video is relevant to your post (let's see here if I can post a YouTube link while I'm using my spiffy iPhone (Siri, can you hear me?)):
    http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qsXyRVQN70U

    ReplyDelete
  3. ChelseaOctober 1, 2012 at 7:22 AM

    That video was so surprisingly entertaining. Best quote: "What is it? Well it is like maybe a Q-tip head with some frozen spider web leggies. Great!"

    I hope that someday, I, too will post video rants about random arthropods, and that some EEB PhD student will link me in a class blog comment. This guy has achieved my dream.

    ReplyDelete

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