Here are your latest Arachnid-links… SPIDERDAY is here!

Some great jumping spider photos from Daniel, taken with a magnifying glass and a phone. Impressive!

Lyssomanes species, from Daniel Llavaneras, reproduced here with permission.

• Cannibalism trials with wolf spiders, in Alaska. Wonderful experiments being done in the North. My Read of the Week.
• Dazzling dancers of the animal kingdom.… and peacock spiders take first place.
• Speaking of jumping spiders, if you like the Salticidae AND taxonomy, here are five new species from China. 
• A website all about spider silk research in Australia.
• An older post, but a good one. Some facts about arachnids. (Yes, there are eight facts).
• Here is my favourite spider-themed Tweet from the past week (in part a response to this ridiculous story)

• Here is an interesting paper about selection for costly sexual traits in a Linyphiidae spider species: note that the ‘cephalic structures’ of males of the species serves as a type of nuptial feeding device for females. Wow.
• A pine cone spider collector keeps on collecting spiders from pine cones. Fascinating stuff for arachnophiles.
• Putting spiders on little treadmills in virtual reality worlds. It’s science, folks.
• Spider-themed mascots? There are some out there… for example, check out the University of Richmond. (Too bad their spider isn’t really anatomically correct)
• More Arachnid taxonomy – a new species of Opiliones (Harvestmen) from Turkey.
• On the topic of Opiliones, check out this video that illustrated an aggregation of these amazing Arachnids: