MuffyTheVampyreLayer
08-22-2002, 10:50 PM
The Associated Press
SPRINGFIELD, Missouri (AP) -- Felicia Daniels wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up. She's off to a good start.
When the pet tarantula in Felicia's eighth-grade classroom took a tumble and cracked its abdomen, the students reassembled its innards, closed it up with Super Glue and apparently saved the creature's life.
"It looked kind of gross," said Felicia, who had the task of applying the glue. "At first I thought it was going to make me sick. But then it looked kind of cool."
The spider, named Sir Isaac Newton, lives in an aquarium in Carolyn Mulkey's science classroom at Study Middle School.
Sir Isaac's brush with death occurred Thursday as Mulkey was trying to hand the spider to student Charity Thomas. The spider tried to make a break for it but instead fell about 4 feet to the floor.
"I heard it," Mulkey said. "He thunked when he hit pretty hard."
Hitting the floor cut the tarantula's abdomen open. Student Chris Davis had a brainstorm: surgery and Super Glue.
He and the guilt-stricken Charity, by then ready "to do anything to save his life," donned plastic gloves and used a Popsicle stick to push the spider's vital organs back in place before Felicia applied the glue.
Still, there was no real hope that Sir Isaac Newton would recover. The defenseless spider was rather lethargic in post-op.
"I assumed I would come in this morning and he would be dead," Mulkey said Friday. Instead, she found a sluggish but hungry spider munching on a mealworm.
SPRINGFIELD, Missouri (AP) -- Felicia Daniels wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up. She's off to a good start.
When the pet tarantula in Felicia's eighth-grade classroom took a tumble and cracked its abdomen, the students reassembled its innards, closed it up with Super Glue and apparently saved the creature's life.
"It looked kind of gross," said Felicia, who had the task of applying the glue. "At first I thought it was going to make me sick. But then it looked kind of cool."
The spider, named Sir Isaac Newton, lives in an aquarium in Carolyn Mulkey's science classroom at Study Middle School.
Sir Isaac's brush with death occurred Thursday as Mulkey was trying to hand the spider to student Charity Thomas. The spider tried to make a break for it but instead fell about 4 feet to the floor.
"I heard it," Mulkey said. "He thunked when he hit pretty hard."
Hitting the floor cut the tarantula's abdomen open. Student Chris Davis had a brainstorm: surgery and Super Glue.
He and the guilt-stricken Charity, by then ready "to do anything to save his life," donned plastic gloves and used a Popsicle stick to push the spider's vital organs back in place before Felicia applied the glue.
Still, there was no real hope that Sir Isaac Newton would recover. The defenseless spider was rather lethargic in post-op.
"I assumed I would come in this morning and he would be dead," Mulkey said Friday. Instead, she found a sluggish but hungry spider munching on a mealworm.