Word: spider
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...little plot summary. James is an orphan boy in the care of two sadistic maiden aunts, Sponge and Spiker. Through some green magic, a garden peach grows to geospheric dimensions. James crawls inside through a pulpy canal, meets some eccentric insects (Old-Green-Grasshopper, Centipede, Ladybug, Miss Spider, Glowworm, Earthworm) and floats across the sea on an adventure that grafts Jules Verne onto Lewis Carroll...
Other samples provide dramatic snapshots of prehistoric behavior: mites hitchhiking on the back of sweat bees; a leaf beetle spitting out a stream of noxious bubbles in self-defense; spiders caught in the act of mating; a praying mantis attacked by ants; a spider finishing off a millipede...
...mantis has nothing on its distant cousin, the Australian redback spider. The spiders too have turned copulation into a girl-eats-boy story. In this case, though, the male not only lets himself be devoured; he also performs acrobatics to make it happen. As soon as the male has put what is delicately known as his intromittent organ into his much larger mate, he turns a somersault--without slipping out--and dangles his juicy abdomen right in front of her mouth. Who could resist? Not the female, who usually begins chomping away...
While most species of bats live in vast colonies in caves or trees, some nest in spider webs; others fashion "tents" out of leaves. In southern India, for example, the male short-nosed fruit bat spends as long as two months painstakingly chewing the veins of leaves and palm fronds until they collapse into a shelter that will house him and a harem of as many as 20 females...
Hundt might have a tougher audience at the Los Angeles headquarters of the Fox network, home of the most popular children's programming in America. Murdoch's Fox Children's Network has virtually all the top-rated shows on Saturday morning, including the Power Rangers, Spider-Man and Eek!Stravaganza. Says Margaret Loesch, president of fcn: "I'm trying to do in our entertainment what I as a parent want broadcasters to do . We are trying to present fantasy. We drive home the point that this is not real, and we tell children not to play karate at home." Some...