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Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

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Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#81

Post by culi »

forinti wrote: post #50

In South America there's a very aggressive spider that lives on the bananas (genus Phoneutria). Spiders usually shy away from humans but these attack and have a very nasty venom. I wonder if the heat will take nasty critters to Europe.

Reminds me of Cecropia trees which are adapted to use some ant species as self defense. The trees live 20-30 years (the same length as an ant queen) and exudes a protein rich substance to feed the ants called Müllerian bodies. The ants in return aggressively protect the tree.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#82

Post by culi »

anukin wrote: post #72
forinti wrote: post #50

In South America there's a very aggressive spider that lives on the bananas (genus Phoneutria). Spiders usually shy away from humans but these attack and have a very nasty venom. I wonder if the heat will take nasty critters to Europe.

We grow bananas at our farm in India and we have never seen this spider ever.

Brazilian wandering spiders are rarely found outside of northern South America.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#83

Post by pvaldes »

whyenot wrote: post #65
pvaldes wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phoneutria are interesting animals. Needed to evolve defenses against the gluttony of monkeys. It must be a tasty spider. It happens that we are monkeys also, so the venom is carefully designed against us. There is a registered case of a Phoneutria bite in UK at least, and the chef was sent directly to an hospital. To be fair, they dislike the cold so the spider had its reasons to be upset when he opened the fridge t…

It turns out that Phoneutria defensive bites are most often "dry" with little if any venom. It's thought that the spiders conserve venom for use on actual prey items. BTW, the four frontal eyes in a box is not considered a good taxonomic character for IDing them, as spiders in other related genera also have this. They do have a warning posture, but not a "dance" that I am aware of. Also, they are terrestrial and hunt…

First of all, thanks for your interesting contribution.

Is a good taxonomic character if you are in Europe, as no European spider, big or small, has this eyes.

Also this is a fast way to discard other tropical spiders that could also appear on orders of imported fresh fruit and have a fearsome look but are harmless.

Tarantulas have small eyes arranged like a bowtie. Huntsmans have four eyes in a line. If you are bitten by a spider that is hairy, bigger than 10cm, and does have eyes arranged like those, is just a pinch, painful but safer than a mosquito bite. Just wash it with soap. Same if the eyes are arranged in a square but two are much bigger than the other two. Safe.

Otherwise.

If you are bitten by a cream hairy spider that has only "3 eyes", one central and two laterals (really 6 in 3 pairs) is a Sicariidae, go to a doctor.

If it has four eyes of the same size arranged in a square be cautious. If it has a middle groove in the rear part of the torax is a Ctenidae, so may be dangerous. As Phoneutria is the most common Ctenidae found in banana bunches, and as we can't discard still that every other genus on the family aren't poisonous, play safe and go to an hospital. If is a harmless related species only they can identify it, and if not you are in the correct place. They can evaluate if is a dry bite and can stabilize you and provide treatment if is not.

The other spiders that are really concerning, the Australian Atrax and Mouse spiders and the black widows are much smaller, 1-5cm, not really hairy and glossy black with red or white marks. They are mostly terrestrial.

If you have not crushed yet the spider, you may need to take a good photo from some distance. Is easier if you trap it before on a glass jar, as long as you can do it safely. If in doubt assure to bring the dead spider with you, so the doctor can see it under a microscope.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#84

Post by card_zero »

Planktonne wrote: post #79
pocksuppet wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potential? The Holocene Extinction is already the sixth mass extinction in Earth's history, and that's pre-climate-change.

I know, but currently we still have rhubarb. The article is extremely blasé about even more species losing their environment.

Rhubarb isn't native to the UK. Its origins are mysterious (the "barb" is for barbarian) but I think it came over with the Romans. I had a feeling that the Tiber was named after rhubarb, but I'm remembering something wrong there evidently.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#85

Post by pvaldes »

card_zero wrote: post #84
Planktonne wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, but currently we still have rhubarb. The article is extremely blasé about even more species losing their environment.

Rhubarb isn't native to the UK. Its origins are mysterious (the "barb" is for barbarian) but I think it came over with the Romans. I had a feeling that the Tiber was named after rhubarb, but I'm remembering something wrong there evidently.

Most probably Asian. There are closer Hymalayan species, if I remember correctly

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#86

Post by amarant »

culi wrote: post #78
comrade1234 wrote: post #48

I have a paw paw tree that has survived 7 years in northern Wisconsin. Unfortunately it is the only one out of five that I planted that has survived and so I'll never get fruit because they reproduce sexually and as far as I know the closest one is 4 hours south in Madison.

Pawpaws are actually hermaphroditic not dioecious. Your tree produces female flowers first and later in the year produces male flowers. This is to prevent self-pollination. However, you can save some male pollen until next year. Alternatively, you could graft the branch of a pawpaw that flowers earlier to try and get the male and female flowers maturing at the same time. You might also be able to just buy some pollen…

Wait would that work? My understanding was that the pollen had to come from a different genome of pawpaw for it to work... But perhaps I'm mistaken?

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#87

Post by notahacker »

card_zero wrote: post #76
notahacker wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it's better faith in the original argument which was a bunch of ludicrous FUD blaming measurement error for climate change, as if thermometers hadn't been located near heat islands and airports for decades and crank blogs had a better idea how to deal with measurement error than meteorologists. The irony is I could actually make a better argument for immigration being a factor in climate change (moving to a m…

I'd be happier if you'd thrown in some concession like "I admit data is sometimes bad quality". That wouldn't mean agreeing with your opponent's implicit denial that any warming is happening. Your side doesn't have to be perfect in order to be in the right, and if you claim infallibility it looks less credible, to me. Is it more important to laugh at this guy, than to be scrupulous? It may spoil an entertaining delib…

I haven't claimed infallibility though, I've even explicitly pointed out that if we choose to take the climate sceptic blog's claims that 3 planes landing some distance away from the weather station added 1.3 degrees to the RAF Coningsby temperature seriously it was still the hottest day ever recorded in that place before the planes landed, and in lots of other places too.

Immigrants were explicitly linked to supposed airport-induced measurement error "as population goes up due to immigration...jet travel goes up and this causes more traffic which warms the air at these weather stations" in the original post and doubled down on by these immigrants supposedly being "a primary driver of data difficulties in climatology". I found it amusing that the example posed was a RAF base...

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#88

Post by geuis »

pvaldes wrote: post #83
whyenot wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out that Phoneutria defensive bites are most often "dry" with little if any venom. It's thought that the spiders conserve venom for use on actual prey items. BTW, the four frontal eyes in a box is not considered a good taxonomic character for IDing them, as spiders in other related genera also have this. They do have a warning posture, but not a "dance" that I am aware of. Also, they are terrestrial and hunt…

First of all, thanks for your interesting contribution. Is a good taxonomic character if you are in Europe, as no European spider, big or small, has this eyes. Also this is a fast way to discard other tropical spiders that could also appear on orders of imported fresh fruit and have a fearsome look but are harmless. Tarantulas have small eyes arranged like a bowtie. Huntsmans have four eyes in a line. If you are bitt…

Lot of excellent information. Thanks. I'm glad someone out there doesn't have arachnophobia. I'm also glad it's not me.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#89

Post by foxglacier »

mike_hearn wrote: post #37
inigyou wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first time I've seen someone blame immigration for climate change.

Because you never looked. What he's saying is a true and well known problem in climatology. Population increases create an appearance of warming in the dataset. There are two sources of corruption. The first is the urban heat island effect. Many weather stations are corrupted because although they were once in fields or other natural sites, over time cities expanded to meet the needs of the growing population and end…

Wouldn't immigration be a real effect too, not just poor measurement? If a person moves from a low emissions per-capita country to a high emissions per-capita country, the emissions attributable to that person would increase because of their lifestyle changes adapting to the new country.
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