Australia’s Scary Spiders

The Infinite Monkey Cage

BBC

Comedy, Science

4.7 • 9.4K Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2023

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Brian Cox and Robin Ince end their Australian science adventure with an episode all about spiders. They are joined by ecologists Dieter Hochuli and Mariella Herberstein and comedian Claire Hooper. They learn about the strange physiology of spiders, including skin shedding, weaving sperm webs and having hundreds of babies at once. They find out exactly how spiders copulate - a process full of surprises - from males having two penises to females cannibalizing the males once the deed is done. Dieter comes to the defence of spiders: despite their deadly venom, they haven’t killed anyone in Australia in over fifty years. Perhaps they aren’t deserving of their fierce reputation after all.

Producer: Caroline Steel Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Robyn Nitz.
0:01.0	And I'm Brian Cox, and we're back for a brand new series.
0:03.8	New episodes will be released weekly,
0:05.7	but if you're in the UK and can't wait,
0:07.9	you can hear it all right now.
0:10.0	Before anywhere else, first on BBC Sounds.
0:14.0	It's wonderful, plentiful, so good.
0:17.2	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:20.8	Hello, I'm Brian Cox.
0:21.9	I'm Robyn Nitz.
0:22.8	And this is the Infinite Monkey Web,
0:24.6	our final Australian show for now.
0:27.1	Actually, might be our final show ever,
0:28.9	because there's a high chance things will go horribly wrong.
0:32.1	There's not a high chance, right?
0:33.3	This is fantastic.
0:34.0	It's my favourite thing of actually seeing Brian scared of something,
0:37.4	because he's not normally scared, right?
0:38.6	As you know, Brian is an adventurer.
0:40.2	He's the kind of person who likes going fast.
0:42.8	He likes flying high, likes getting drunk in South American Amazonian jungles
0:46.9	with parrots, and you've probably not...
	...

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