The Tarantula Scientist

Meet arachnologist Sam Marshall as he explores the floor of the rainforest of French Guiana in South America, studying the habits and habitat of the Goliath birdeater tarantula, the world’s largest spider. Marshall was an indifferent student at Bard College until he found his passion, researching the habits and behavior of tarantulas. He says, "Scientific research is just a way of asking a question and answering it. That was the thing that totally changed my life." Now he works at the largest comparative spider laboratory in the U.S., which he founded, at Hiram College in Ohio. This Sibert Honor winner (silver medal) for distinguished informational books, part of the exemplary Scientists in the Field series, highlights an enthusiastic and articulate expert in his field. The book abounds with Nic Bishop’s splendid life-sized color photographs that reveal and revel in the majesty of tropical tarantulas, which scientists also call hairy mygalomorphs. How much do you know about them? Here are just a few facts you’ll glean from the book. True or false?:

1. People can die from a tarantula's bite.
2. Tarantulas smell with their feet.
3. Tarantulas can regrow lost legs.
4. Tarantulas live for 4 years.

ANSWERS:
1. False. No one has ever died from one.
2. True.
3. True.
4. False. Some can live for 30.

For some spectacular color photos of many types of tarantulas, go to the American Tarantula Society website at http://atshq.org/gallery Bishop and Montgomery also won a Sibert Honor for Quest for the Tree Kangaroo: An Expedition to the Cloud Forest of New Guinea, while Bishop won yet another Sibert Honor in 2008 for Nic Bishop Spiders, in which he wrote about and photographed more than a dozen arachnids.

Reviewed by : JF.

Themes : ANIMALS. BIOGRAPHY. SCIENCE AND SCIENTISTS.