Spiderday (#22)

November 21, 2015November 21, 2015 / Chris Buddle / 1 Comment

It’s been a couple of weeks, but nevertheless, here is another edition of SPIDERDAY! All the best Arachnid-themed links, pulled from the web in the last little while.

Just look at this Jumping spider keeping an eye on her babies! Photo by Nick Porch (reproduced here with permission)

Myth-busting time: do we really swallow spiders when we sleep? (spoiler: NO)
Yay! Rod Crawford’s “Spider Myth” page has been revamped.
Origami spiders. That is all.
Talk about an overreaction: an “infestation” of false widow spiders force school closures in the UK. Sigh.
A video about how spider webs could inspire sticker glues.
Undergraduate students in my field biology class wrote a blog post about spiders.
Ant-mimicking jumping spiders are too amazing for words, so here’s a photo:

Screen Shot 2015-11-20 at 9.29.37 AM

Wasps that parasitize spider eggs. Yup, it happens all the time.
Catch that prey - Do it! Do it! A GIF that says it all.
For those keen on spider taxonomy, here’s a paper about rethinking a family placement for a spider species. I love this line from the paper “We came across a jar…”
A preprint that is of significant interest to many: Spider phylogenomics: untangling the spider tree of life.
A spider-themed sculpture makes a new record at auction. That’s something I could not afford!
I simply adore this Arachnid-themed comic! Gotta love pseudoscorpions.

Speaking of pseudoscorpions, here’s a story about some that hitch rides on bats. That’s incredible natural history! This is my Read Of The Week.
A wonderful story about an Opiliones (~~Harvestmen~~ Harvestperson) with a very suitable name (hint: think about the secretive cave-dwelling character in the Lord of the Rings)
Terrific photo of an oribatid mite.
Here’s an amazing 3D drawing of a spider (and how to do it). Wow.

Spiderday (#21)

November 7, 2015November 7, 2015 / Chris Buddle / 1 Comment

Spiderday! Here’s some Arachnid-themed links I stumbled across over the past week.

Green Lynx spider eating Green Lynx spider. By Nash Turley

A story about a spider that destroys female genitalia to prevent future mating. My Read Of The Week.
I love this - a construction project halted because of potential cave spiders.
Some bioinspiration, spider-style: A North Face parka made from synthetic spider silk.
Worth a listen (and look): an Arachnid Orchestra.
Check out those ants. No, wait… one of them is a little different than the others…. SPIDERS! Myrmecophilic spiders!
Two new jumping spider species. And not just any species.. but “horned” species.

Fish-eating spiders. Oh, yeah!

Trying really hard to get a false widow spider to bite. Good luck.
Don’t love this story… but an interesting study nevertheless: pesticide effects on brown widow egg cases.
Here’s a really interesting article on the Phylogeography of “Subterranean Alpine” Spiders. Spiders spin steely silken spleandour.
Here’s another fantastic article: weapon trimorphism in Opiliones.
A wonderful series of images of mites.
Amblypygids are awesome. Really, they are.
A great video on the biology and courtship of the Peacock spider:

Spiderday (#20)

October 31, 2015October 31, 2015 / Chris Buddle / 1 Comment

What a great day. It’s Halloween AND spiderday. On the same day. And it’s the 20th edition of spiderday. It just doesn’t get any better. Here are the arachnid-themed stories I pulled from the web over the past week.

But first… just LOOK AT THIS amazing little spider:

A mystery 'tube spider' by Daniel Llavaneras.

A ‘tube spider’ (genus Dipoena) by Daniel Llavaneras.

A post for Halloween… Spiders: how spooky are they?
And here is the BEST spider-themed Halloween costume out there.
What should you do if you are bitten by a spider? Here’s a terrific post, with Australian focus, on the topic. It’s my read of the week.
Catherine Scott live-tweeted some spider sex. It was very popular - so much so that the national news in Canada picked it up. Well done, Catherine!
Arrrr you ready for the next post… PIRATE SPIDERS! Avast!
Good glue: spider silk and bioinspiration for material science.
Mites like to hitch rides on animals. Here’s a post on that topic. “Is that a Wombat on your belly…?“
Yikes: some itchy oak mites are showing up in parts of the USA.
Spiders feed birds:

Capture

I’m sad that Arachtober is over. Africa Gomez had amazing posts all month. Here’s one on a relatively unknown family of ant-mimics: the Zodariidae
Do brown recluse spider reign by terror?
Entomologist Matt Bertone does a nice piece on North Carolina Television… “some nice spiders” he says. Indeed!
Pseudoscorpions + birds: a novel symbiosis between weaver birds and pseudoscorpions in southern Africa
Here’s something on spiders from forest reserves in India.
For taxonomists, a new species of Tarantula from Columbia!
Here’s a introductory poster from “Ontario Nature” all about spiders: you don’t need to spray pesticides against them!
There’s a spider emoji now.
What to expect when your cellar spider is expecting.
Thousands of spiders take over a bridge in Ohio. A video full of enthusiasm and natural history:

Spiderday (#19)

October 24, 2015October 24, 2015 / Chris Buddle / Leave a comment

It’s been a few weeks since the last SPIDERDAY (sorry…). Here’s another edition of this feature, with links to some of my favourite stories about Arachnids. It was easy to pull this together this month, since it’s Arachtober.

This is a lovely spider species in the family Titanoecidae. (Photo by Sean McCann)

Here is a post that gives a nice history of Arachtober, and to further celebrate, here’s a wonderful gallery of beautiful spiders.
Speaking of gorgeous spiders… check these out. They are: Epicadus heterogaster
Spiders in your bananas? Don’t panic. Stay calm. This is my read of the week.
Found a venomous spider in Australia? There’s a drop-off centre for that.
Africa Gomez has been *very* busy this month, doing new spider posts every day. For example, check out this lovely post about pirate spiders. Arrrrrrrrr!!!
Um, why did the Tarantula cross the road?
Worried that a wood-louse hunter might bite you? It might take a while for that to happen, even when you try really, really hard.
Ever wonder what a spider collection looks like at a research collection? Here you go:

Capture

A GIF of a funnel-web spider strike.
For the taxonomists among us: Here is a revised and dated phylogeny of cobweb spiders.
Nature’s spectacular patterns, spider style.
More stunning photos from Nicky Bay: this time it’s Peruvian ‘roly-poly’ orbweavers
Extreme cephalothorax modifications in Linyphiid spiders (genus Walkenaeria)
Added to the life list: I got to travel to Arkansas earlier in the month, and we able to see a spider I’ve never seen before, Ctenus exlineae:

Ctenus exlineae

Like mites? You might really, really like this post about Brazilian feather-mites.
Boom: new Mite family in New Zealand.
Solifugids sometimes have a bad reputation. However, they can be cuddly teddy bears of the desert.
Here’s another post about these incredible Arachnids… “death wrapped in mystery”
Arachnids fight it out: the secretions from the Opiliones (Harvest~~men~~persons) aren’t enough against scorpion, this paper shows.
Yes, you will notice I wrote Harvestpersons. Here’s what happens when you poke Harvestpersons, and why we should call them Harvestpersons.
tap-tap-tap. Here’s a neat little short film showing some courtship with Araneus diadematus:
I love this video: Spiders… the first web developers:

Arachtober

October 1, 2015September 30, 2015 / Chris Buddle / 3 Comments

We are in for a great month. It’s not October… it’s Arachtober. It’s a month to celebrate all things Arachnid, from photos, to blog posts and stories about our eight-legged friends. It’s a month to appreciate Arachnids for what they are: stunningly beautiful animals.

A beautiful long-jawed orb-weaver (image by Alex Wild, from “Insects Unlocked”.)

To get all set for Arachtober, here are some ways to get involved and to learn about spiders:

First, do check out Africa Gomez’s blog - she’s promised to do daily (yes, DAILY) posts about spiders. Yay!

Be sure to follow Catherine Scott - she is on a terrific campaign to help educate people about spiders, and calm down the nerves and assure folks that the spiders they find are *not* brown recluse spiders.

This is Catherine Scott, wearing a t-shirt with an important message.

Be sure to keep an eye on the Arachtober Flickr group. Amazing photos to be found there; this was the first place that Arachtober got started… members of that group tried to post new spider photos daily, throughout the month of October.

For other photos about arachnids, do check out work by Sam Martin, or Thomas Shahan, or Sean McCann, or Alex Wild, to name a few. Here’s an example of Sean’s work:

If you want to find other Archnologists on Twitter, here’s a Twitter List for you.

Want to learn more about Arachnology? Check out the American Arachnological Society, or the International Society of Arachnology. Here’s a more general post about what to do if you want to be an arachnologist.

Arachnology has a rich and fascinating history. The Biodiversity Heritage Library is a wonderful resource: here, you can look at old titles about spiders and on their Flickr page, view stunning plates from those old books and journals.

Have some interests in drawing spiders? Don’t forget to get the anatomy correct! Here’s a post from a 10 year-old who did it right:

Capture

Have a read through these great Arachtober posts from the past, from Bug Gwen.

Another great blog to check out, for wonderful spider natural history, comes from “Bug Eric”.

Have a spider and not sure what it is? Sometimes you can surf around on BugGuide and work towards an identification with that. It’s a great resource for Arachnophiles.

Arachtober ends with Halloween, of course. Perhaps viewing some movies featuring spiders is a fine idea.

Oh, and for Halloween, here’s how to make your 3D spider cake (um, too bad about the spider’s anatomy is all wrong. Sigh)

And, finally: SPIDER ROBOT (check around the 7:00 mark):

So, how else will you celebrate Arachtober? Share your thoughts in the comment section, below!

[As many of you know, I’ve been posting weekly with links to stories about arachnids, called “SPIDERDAY“. Given a busy travel schedule this month, Spiderday may be a bit ‘irregular’ - sorry!]

Spiderday (#18)

September 26, 2015September 26, 2015 / Chris Buddle / 1 Comment

Whoop! Three cheers for SPIDERDAY (or would it be more apt to say “eight cheers”?. All the arachnid links from the past week, in one place.

Meet your dock spiders. Photo by Sean McCann.

My Read Of The Week was an easy one - this post on Spider Assassins (Family Archaeidae) contains incredible photos and natural history.
Good news: the hobo spider is no longer on the ‘venomous animals’ list from the CDC. It’s about time!
Spiders - a guide for first year students. Say calm, folks, stay calm.
A crab spider eats a hoverfly. A wasp comes along. See what happens…
Here is a well-done illustrated guide to nine common spider species (and webs) occuring in households in the UK.
Spiders on a plane! A roaming tarantula plays havoc with a Delta flight.
Meet Singapore’s very own spider ambassador.
In my own home, this week, Shelob met some hobbits (and Gollum too)
Do you ever freak out when running into a spider web? Here’s a fun little conversation on the topic:

Screen Shot 2015-09-25 at 11.16.16 AM

On the more serious side, the Heartland virus (carried by ticks) may occur across the eastern USA.
Have a tick and need to remove it? Here’s some info for you.
Lyme disease update: Ticks carrying the lyme bacterium have been found in parks in south London (UK).
Ticks get a bad name. On the lighter side of Ticks, there’s the comic-book series to consider…?
An older finding on fossil Opiliones (Harvestmen) with a second set of eyes.
There is often a lot of confusion around the common name “Daddy-long-legs” (in the Arachnid sense, this refers to Opiliones [Harvestmen] or sometimes cellar-spiders). Here’s an image that should help:

Screen Shot 2015-09-25 at 11.19.30 AM

Um, but it should be ‘Harvestperson’ not ‘Harvestmen’.

Spiderday (#17)

September 19, 2015September 19, 2015 / Chris Buddle

Arachnids: cool, amazing animals with lots of legs and lots of fascinating biology. SPIDERDAY brings you the best arachnid links from the past week. Here’s your 17th edition:

A wonderful shot of a crab spider: part of the brilliant “insects unlocked” project.

Arachnologists in some parts of the world are getting LOTS of questions about all the spiders showing up in houses, on buildings and just about everywhere. This happens every year around this time, ’cause it is autumn. Here’s a great summary of this (and my Read of The Week)
One very common species that people are noticing this time of year (at least in my neck of the woods) is Neoscona crucifera, and this post provides a great summary of the species.
Under the heading of “ridiculous“, there’s a company selling spider-proof sheds. Spoiler: don’t waste your money.
Wasps that turn spiders into the walking dead. Boom. (here’s another write up of the story)
Here’s a really wonderful blog about orb-weavers called ‘thorned heart’. It includes taxonomy, natural history and photographs.
They are finding some lovely spiders in Australia… Hello there indeed!
For the taxonomically inclined.. new species… more than that.. new Genus of spiders from southern Africa.
Spider love. Yeah, for the jumpers.
Oh dear: spider scare causes school bus crash.
Mitey Mites grabbing a ride: in this case, new species on beetles.
Want to kill dust mites? Stop making your bed. Well… it’s not that simple, but that is quite a headline!
Love the enthusiasm for spider silk in this video. SUPER STRONG SPIDER SILK YEAH!

Spiderday (#16)

September 12, 2015September 12, 2015 / Chris Buddle / Leave a comment

You latest edition of SPIDERDAY! (sorry, folks, it’s been a busy week, so I just don’t have as many links as usual)

An amazing photo of a Solifuges (aka Camel Spider), by Sean McCann

My Read of the Week is this story: a spider that looks and smells like bird droppings.
A “poison cave” in Romania hosts some incredible animals, including some Arachnids.
did you know this…? The rather famous peacock spiders were originally called “gliding spiders”, with a thought that they used their flaps as wings.
Jumping spider personalities change after exposure to pesticides (yeah, I know, tooting my own horn here!)
Love these fangs! A “mysterious” funnel-web spider in Australia found with blood-red fangs.
For the taxonomically inclined… a new species of Dysderidae from Turkey.
Now *this* is a handsome spider:

SpiderPortrait

Spiderday (#15)

September 5, 2015 / Chris Buddle / 3 Comments

It’s that time of the week - SPIDERDAY! Your round-up of Arachnid links. Enjoy!

Tarantula! Wonderful illustration from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

On the topic of Tarantulas, we had exciting news in our house this week…
On the natural history and biology of some relatively rare orb-web spiders. This is most certainly my Read of The Week.
A wonderful story: a shipment to a previous house owner ends up being a ‘return to sender’ parcel - this surprises the new homeowner because it contains an ill-looking tarantula. He is concerned, and takes it to a rescue centre (that’s a good-hearted person!)
Here is a fabulous resource for identifying brown widow spiders. They can be tricky…
A fascinating paper about factors affecting genotyping with spiders: this work relies on museum specimens. Another reason for vouchers…
For those with an interest in Salticidae taxonomy, Wayne Maddison and company published a reinterpretation of a jumping spider genus, Thiodina.
Here is some lovely spider art:

Capture

Spider bots are coming from you. Goofy and terrifying, all at once 🙂
I was reminded of this post, and paper, about how insects are crustaceans. So, how to Arachnids fit in? They remain ‘chelicerates’, of course.
On daddy-long-legs (Harvestmen) - “THAT IS NO SPIDER!”
My research on Arctic pseudoscorpions was featured in “Yukon North” - Ice-age relics lurk along the Dempster
Spiders tune their webs.
Speaking of webs, here’s a nice little video showing a lovely jumping spider looking after its web. So cute!

Spiderday (#14)

August 29, 2015 / Chris Buddle / 2 Comments

Here is the latest edition of SPIDERDAY! A perfect spot to check out the best ‘web’ links related to Arachnids. It’s sure to catch you…

From Alex Wild, a lovely amblypygid. Like that image? Here are more of his arachnid photos.

The ‘parasite of the day’ blog featured wonderful natural history about parasitoids of web-building spiders, and the parasitized spiders sometimes end up changing how they build their webs. My Read Of The Week
On the biology and natural history of ant-like spiders in the genus Castianeira
Brown recluse spider venom: how it works.
Here is a fascinating paper about what it means to be a ‘specialized’ predator. In this case, the questions focus on blood-feeding jumping spiders. (um, not exactly - how about jumping spiders that show preferences for feeding on blood-fed mosquitoes)
“American spiders and their spinningwork“. A classic from McCook, from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Widow spiders? They can get around… Here, reported from Tahiti (and some other islands) for the first time.
Many toy companies have some troubles figuring out where to put legs on spiders. Here’s my drawing to help them out:

An air quality monitoring station had a guest, and the arachnid messed the readings up. “A spider did it!”
Taxonomy FTW… eight new Mygalomorph species are described.
Spiders and the big screen… Predatoroonops - a genus of goblin spiders, all named in honour of characters from the movie Predator.
Wonderful research on black Widow web reduction… as a podcast. It’s worth a listen.
Urban gardens, spiders and landscapes: a paper to check out.
This is from a while ago, but worth a look again: some bizarre and beautiful “primitive” mites. Wow.
In tick-related news, here is a simply excellent overview of the growing global battle against blood-sucking ticks.
So, #Junkoff was a bit hit last week. Here’s my favourite:

JunkOff_SpiderStyle

Arthropod Ecology

Writings about arthropod ecology, arachnids & academia at McGill University

Spiders

Spiderday (#22)

Spiderday (#21)

Spiderday (#20)

Spiderday (#19)

Arachtober

Spiderday (#18)

Spiderday (#17)

Spiderday (#16)

Spiderday (#15)

Spiderday (#14)