Wouldn't a person at least need to breathe and have a heart beat to live through the paralysis? How would no one notice them breathing or check a pulse? Or is their explanation that Pikki's heart rates and breathing patterns are slowed down so much that they wouldn't detect it?

Undetected. I believe Arzt said so.

She told Paulo that his heartbeat would be so slow that even a doctor would have a hard time detecting it.

And since Jack was not present, I'm sure that's why they thought they were both dead.

This could be the "jump the shark" moment that had been mentioned, because the spider shown was a banana spider: http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1265-29.html (not to be confused with the Brazil Wanderer that is associated with shipments of bananas}. The spider shown in LOST appears to be a Nephila pilipes, quite common to Florida and tropical/subtropic areas . They are not dangerous to humans and definitely will not paralyse you for 8 hours. I'm not sure any spider will paralyse you for 8 hours. If anyone knows of one, please correct me.

I assumed they meant to say the spider venom brought on something simlar an extreme case of hypothermia, that lasted around eight hours. I'm also pretty sure the writers made the spider up, but I wouldn't call that a jump the shark moment. It's far from the most creative thing on the island. I doubt they were trying to claim that a common, harmless spider is actually extremely dangerous, it's probably just much easier to get actors to work with common, harmless spiders.

This could be the "jump the shark" moment that had been mentioned, because the spider shown was a banana spider: http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1265-29.html (not to be confused with the Brazil Wanderer that is associated with shipments of bananas}. The spider shown in LOST appears to be a Nephila pilipes, quite common to Florida and tropical/subtropic areas . They are not dangerous to humans and definitely will not paralyse you for 8 hours. I'm not sure any spider will paralyse you for 8 hours. If anyone knows of one, please correct me.

Dont forget that "LOST" is a sci fi show...Imnot sure that there are many clkouds of black smoke around that can manifest itself as peoples fears and kill them either...but hey - its entertainment!

And obviously they cant use a real dangerous spider on the show, or the cast would be dropping like flies! lol

Angie
xxxxx

This could be the "jump the shark" moment that had been mentioned, because the spider shown was a banana spider: http://gallery.lost-media.com/displayimage-1265-29.html (not to be confused with the Brazil Wanderer that is associated with shipments of bananas}. The spider shown in LOST appears to be a Nephila pilipes, quite common to Florida and tropical/subtropic areas . They are not dangerous to humans and definitely will not paralyse you for 8 hours. I'm not sure any spider will paralyse you for 8 hours. If anyone knows of one, please correct me.Well, Artz did say that he found several new species - that he could be the new Darwin.. So I think we're supposed to suspend disbelief and realize that this was one of the new species - one that doesn't exist as we know it..

Well, Artz did say that he found several new species - that he could be the new Darwin.. So I think we're supposed to suspend disbelief and realize that this was one of the new species - one that doesn't exist as we know it..

Which is all well and good and I could hang with that, except ... if it was supposed to be a brand new species that no one knew existed ... umm ... how did dear Dr. Arzt know what its bite did? Or its pheromone level? Did he have an arachnid pheromone detector and measurement device in his luggage?

I mean, he simply stated things as fact. Did he divine these things simply from looking at the thing?

Maybe he did a little Spider vs. Pig/Mantis/other-spider Battle Royal....
And found out the victim came back "to live" after 8 hours...

yep. I'm sure he was doing experiments, and discovered the results of a spider bite from this particular spider. And I would think that all over the world there are millions of as-yet unidentified species of insects and animals and Artz discovered a few of them. Poor guy, he'll never receive the glory that any biologist would give an arm for...

Which is all well and good and I could hang with that, except ... if it was supposed to be a brand new species that no one knew existed ... umm ... how did dear Dr. Arzt know what its bite did? Or its pheromone level? Did he have an arachnid pheromone detector and measurement device in his luggage?

I mean, he simply stated things as fact. Did he divine these things simply from looking at the thing?I watched that scene again. I was incorrect in thinking Artz claimed the Medusa spider to be a brand new species.. He says: "That is (**insert fictional latin spider name here** Laterodextris Regina or something) They call it a Medusa Spider... Very dangerous..."

So it's supposed to be an existing fictional spider (like Oceanic's a fictional airline), and Artz already knows the effects in advance.

when he said he could be the next darwin I immediately thought of him winning the darwin award...hehe

Vinecent knew they were dead.

Vinecent knew they were dead.

I think Vincent knew that they weren't dead.

Poor guy, he'll never receive the glory that any biologist would give an arm for...

Are you saying that Marvin Candle is an award winning biologist? ;)

Poor guy, he'll never receive the glory that any biologist would give an arm for...

Well, if that biologist waits a few minutes, I'm sure one of Artz's arms will be landing nearby any time now....:biggrin: (anybody have an exploding smiley?)

By the way, nice parallel between Mikhail Bakunin saying to Locke "The John Locke I knew was para -" and being cut off by Danielle before Kate and Sayid learned about Locke's paralysis, and Nikki also being unable to get out the word paralyzed so that Sawyer and Hurley would know about her paralysis.

...which, by the way, makes me wonder if perhaps the writers did actually always intend for Nikki/Paolo to die this way. I mean, how coincidental is it that Paolo has the perfect name such that the words "Paolo lies" could be confused with "paralyzed"...

Are you saying that spiders can't act like different species? (Spider Acting 101 - hee hee)