This TED Talk features zoologist Michel Dugan recorded live at TEDx Galway 2017.

Well, hello.

This is Sophie.

It's all right.

Don't worry.

Everything's going to be fine.

There are some people on the balcony that are very happy to be up there now.

So this is Sophie, not Sofia, no Sophie.

She has a French name. You wonder why?

So Sophie, for most people, is the incarnation of terror, really.

She's far too legy, she's far too hairy, and she's far too big to

ever be trusted. But to me, Sophie is a fantastic feat of bioengineering. You see, Sophie is a

testimony to all those creatures that have managed to survive since the beginning of times,

all those animals that have managed to have offspring,

generation after generation, until this day.

You see, over one billion years ago,

the first primitive cells have started to evolve on this planet.

It took spiders 430 million years to become what they are now,

one of the most versatile, one of the most diverse,

and one of the most evolved group of predators to ever walk this earth.

It's actually quite sporty to give a speech while wrangling a tarantula, I have to say.

So we shouldn't forget that Sophie, and in fact all of us, we all are a testimony to all those

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