“If anybody was lookin’ for some things, all they need to do is follow the spiders.” – Hagrid

With all the bugs around in the summer, it’s probably no surprise that there are also lots of spiders around.

Where I live, they’re all the kind that mostly leave humans alone, like jumping spiders, or daddy long-legs.

But there are parts of the world where some of the local arachnids are very dangerous to humans.

And in some cases, it can be hard to tell whether the spider in your living room is one you can safely send outside, or one that you should probably flee.

Yes, there are spider guides you can check, and they can be great, but sometimes you need a quick answer from a neutral party.

Meet Critterpedia, the app that can tell which spider is which for you!

The inventors, Nic and Murray Scarce, worked with Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation on the app.

It works sort of like the music-recognition system Shazam.

You use your smartphone to take a photo of a spider, and it will use artificial intelligence to match the features of that creature with those in its knowledge base, and tell you what it is, and, perhaps more importantly, whether or not it’s going to try to end you.

It’s still in beta testing, and it focuses on Australian species, but since there are like 2,000 spider species there, that’s a pretty big step forward.

Today is National Root Beer Float Day, and so in Glendale, Wisconsin, outside Milwaukee, there’s going to be a drive-thru root beer parade.

They’re giving away free floats and asking people to donate to charity, and the goal is to set the world record for the largest root beer float drive-thru.

How is it we’ve gotten to 2020 without a world record in that category?

Australia just invented Shazam for spiders (CNet)

Sprecher Aims To Set Record for World’s Largest Root Beer Float Drive-Thru With Free Floats For All (Yahoo)

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