Re: [OT] Bug history was: Starship Troopers

On 23-Feb-02 at 08:20, Beth.Fulton@csiro.au (Beth.Fulton@csiro.au)
wrote:
> G'day,
> 
> > I was told earlier this week that the Sydney Funnelweb Spider 
> > is only lethal to mammals.	It paralyses other species instead.
> 
> Actually I thought it was deadliest for primates, whereas other
mammals
> (e.g. cats/dogs) were relatively resistant. That's what's always
freaked me
> out... its in Australia and primates (i.e. humans in this case)
weren't to
> relatively recently... colossual fluke or nasty cosmic joke? ;)

No stranger than poison ivy.  It causes allergic reactions in most
humans (don't know about the rest of the primates) but has no
affect on most other mammals.