BUGS Britannica

摘要

LAST SEPTEMBER, you may recall, was 'The Month of the Daddy-long-legs'. For a few weeks, they were everywhere, "battering doltishly at each window," as journalist Craig Brown described them, "getting hopelessly frazzled in lampshades, crash-bombing one's hair and going for fruitless, and generally fatal, swims in every bath and basin." A rumour doing the rounds claimed that this helplessly bumbling, long-legged fly was not as harmless as it appeared. Indeed, Brown's daughter learned at school that it was possibly "the most poisonous insect in the world." If this was the case, you could imagine the threat it could pose to someone asleep, snoring away with their mouth open.