Here it is… the sixth installment of SPIDERDAY! I scoured the “web”, and found you all the arachnological links from last week:

Not a spider, but an Opiliones (Harvestmen, or Daddy Long Legs). Photo by Nash Turley.

• The “Big Bad Spider“: a wonderful post about why spiders might so often be featured (in art, books, culture) as monsters and villains.
• A spider’s egg sac does not always produce spiders.
• Always great to see more species of spiders described: in this case, some arachnids from Australia, including lovely Mygalomorphs.
• More on mygalomophs: this paper shows a radiation of cryptic, endemic species in California.
• Catherine Scott takes on the crusade of convincing people the spiders they are worried about are NOT brown recluse spiders. Good for you, Catherine!
• On the “Stylish Academic”, a Q & A with Arachnologist Michelle Reeve
• Spider book update: help decide what common species should show up in an upcoming book about North American spiders.
• Fortuitously, last Saturday was #SpiderSaturday. That’s awesome.
• No, Daniel, these are not freckles:

• Dan Johnson has been Tweeting some nice images and natural history about northern scorpions, found in Alberta, Canada.
• Ticks can have a very significant impact on wildlife: here’s excellent coverage about “ghost moose”
• Varroa mites are well known to beekeepers. But how do they make their way into hives? ..by smelling like bees, of course.
• A small mite was clinging to the leg of a flying ant when it was trapped….forever….
• Here’s is some simply fantastic biology and natural history about a desert-dwelling mite and its incredible feeding adaptations. This is my arachnological read of the week.
• I’ll leave this here for you: a mitey feeding frenzy: