Hello All

I was thinking back on this past week, trying to decide what neat things happened and what I should write about and I noticed that this past week has been very much about myths, legends and stories. Now you might wonder what Rondeau has to do with myths and legends and I agree that at first glance it can be tough to see the connection. As interpreters our job is to introduce people to wonders of the world around them. Myths, legends and stories are a great way to pique people’s interest in not only the history of an area, but also in nature.

Our shipwreck walk on Tuesday covered the story aspect of our Myth, Legend and Story week. The stories of local area shipwrecks were powerful and evocative and gave a sense of the tragedies that can occur on the deceptively calm appearance of Lake Erie’s waters. However, I’ve written about our shipwreck program in the past so I’ll leave it there.

The myth component was taken care of at our bat night on Friday evening. There are a lot of myths about the natural world and bats have their fair share of them. It’s amazing how many myths there are about bats considering how many cool things that are true about them, like eating half their body weight in food per evening (that’s like me eating 360 quarter pounders with cheese in a day). Buts myths do abound from flying into people’s hair to being completely blind. In reality bats can see just fine. Though for precision night time hunting and navigation, their echolocation is the tool at night.
















The only time you'll see a bat in someone's hair


And finally legends abounded on Saturday night when we talked of our celestial friends – the stars (unfortunately, due to a cloud bank we could not see them). Legends were shared from cultures around the world. We had Greek legends about the constellation Andromeda, Japanese legends about the star Vega and Native American Legends about the Big Dipper. If you’d like to hear them, you’ll have to join us for our next star night on Aug 7th.

















The Constellation of Andromeda
The fuzzy dot in the middle is the Galaxy of Andromeda



For the nature feature of this week, I though I’d keep to the same theme and talk about a creature who has a few of my favourite urban myths – the harvestmen. Now some of you may be wondering what a Harvestman is. You may know them better as daddy longlegs. The first misconception is that they are spiders. They look similar and are related to spiders, but if you look closely they have a couple of differences. The easiest one to spot is their body. Spiders have two body parts connected by a thin waste whereas harvestmen have only one oval shaped body part. Another big difference is that harvestmen can’t make silk (a defining characteristic of spiders). But one of the neatest differences is the eyes. Most spiders have 8 eight eyes, but harvestmen only have two which are located on a small turret on their back. The eyes are placed back to back so that the harvestmen can see all around it to avoid predators.



















Harvestmen/Daddy Longlegs

















The black dot are the eyes, back to back on a raise platform


When I was a kid we were always told that if you kill a daddy longlegs it will make it rain. This myth supposedly came about because daddy longlegs are more frequently seen before a rain storm (however, I’ve found no scientific evidence whether or not that is true). Another old wives tale that I’ve heard is that a daddy longlegs will point you in the direction of your lost cows. You have to pick up the harvestmen by all the legs except one. The free leg will then point you in the direction of your cows.

But my favourite myth has to be that harvestmen are the most poisonous ‘spider’ in the world, they just can’t pierce our skin with their fangs. Of course we already know that they aren’t spiders and the third thing that puts them in a different group is that they don’t have any venom at all. In fact, harvestmen don’t even have fangs! Instead, they have tong-like appendages that help them grasp their food. Harvestmen eat dead insects, decaying plants, insect eggs or smaller, slow moving insects – nothing that they need fangs or venom for. I have no idea where this myth originated, but it has become so pervasive that major TV shows like Bill Nye the Science Guy and Mythbusters have done programs to debunk it. It’s amazing how many myths there are about this small, innocuous creature. It just goes to show you that you can’t believe everything that you here.













Tong-like mouthparts of a harvestman


Once again I’ve attached this week’s upcoming schedule. If you have heard any weird facts about nature and want to know if they are true send me an email or drop by the Visitor Centre and we’ll de-mythify them for you.


Mythically Yours
Kip