Arachnids + a glitch in the works

http://www.lateralscience.co.uk/glitch/
Autonomous Phosphorous Rendering Engine by Ernest Glitch

http://technabob.com/blog/2011/11/02/spider-robot/

This morning was taken on a merry chase by a face book  friend, Simon Park (biologist from UK) who posted an intriguing image of an Autonomous Phosphorous Rendering Engine on his site, apparently invented in the mid 18th Century by the savant Ernest Glitch to move about agricultural land, harvesting animals for the phosphorus in their bones. Can you imagine this large contraption lumbering along with its metallic mandibles and serrated teeth ready to devour some poor unsuspecting creature? I thought the drawing of the machine rather interesting since its form was similar to hexapods being designed within contemporary robotics, particularly The Muscle Machine, six-legged walking robot that Stelarc performed with in the past decade, the prototype micro-robot designed by our own Steven Middleton for Stelarc, or, more recently, the spider robot developed by the Fraunhofer Institute.

http://juliejoyclarke.blogspot.com/2010/01/steven-middleton-prototype-robot.html 

Unfortunately I could not find anything substantial about Ernest Glitch and I suspect that rather than being an inventor he is the imaginative concoction of some mad scientist/artist/writer who writes a blog under the title of Lateral Science. Still, following up on all of this has been a delightful way to spent some of my morning. All I can say is I totally understand why some people are arachnophobic!.