How much truth is in this report? :blink: see the link articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/201...district-upper-assam

There was a thread on this around here somewhere.

I cant remember the conclusion tho

rheednh1 wrote: How much truth is in this report? :blink: see the link articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/201...district-upper-assam

It was a normal "marching males" thing, but this time it was a bumper crop of tarantulas. There was some speculation that there had been unusually heavy rains the day before in a neighboring area, but I only saw one mention of it. If so, the tarantulas might easily have been stampeded into the village as they fled flooded colonies and inundated burrows.

The few deaths that were reported were also to have been the result of village shamans performing "cottage medicine" with unclean instruments on a few of the people who got bit. The deaths were reported to have been the result of infections. In rural India, any sort of septic wound can be deadly.

This has probably happened every year or every few years since before the dawn of history, but this was an exceptionally big march. As a result it suffered from one of the three so-called CNN effects: Rampant over sensationalization by the media. After all, doesn't everybody love a good spider story?

Enjoy your little 8-legged marching hordes!

P.S. - The other two CNN effects:

2) Super, excessively, overintensive news reporting instantly broadcast worldwide. A multimedia overdose.

3) The interviewee never answers the question that the interviewer asks, but rather answers the question that it was hoped might be asked instead.

Reporter: "So, do you think that this flood of tarantulas was due to the rains in XXXX yesterday?

Interviewee: "Well, you know the weather we've been having has been most bizarre, and if we factor in the effects of nuclear fallout with the current invasion of UFOs, ..."

:laugh:

:woohoo:

:igiveup:

:happy:

" Enjoy your little 8-legged marching hordes!"

They are so adorable any way :angel: