Please note: I’m going to be away (vacation time…) for part of August – your next Spiderday will likely be on 22 August. Hope you can wait that long!

From Jonathan Kolby, an awesome net-casting spider! Amazing animals.

• Green Lynx Spiders – friend or foe? My Read of the Week.
• A moth that mimics a jumping spider. And if you don’t believe the photo, there’s a paper about it too.
• The Spider Forest: Here’s a great field work adventure, in which spiders kind of get in the way of research. 
• Boom: new spider species (in Kerala). Always good news.
• Wolf spider cannibalism? Yes, it’s important.
• Spider of the Dominican Republic: there’s a blog for that.
• Here’s a very interesting post that is all about how wasps take down spiders: spiders are prey too!
• Here’s a video on that topic:

• in New Zealand, here’s a post about mites that may prove to be important biological control agents against wasps. Mite-y powerful!
• On damselflies and mites: Regionally widespread parasitic water mites have relatively broad host species ranges. Nifty paper!
• An unlucky Opiliones:

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:

But first, do check out photos from Colin Hutton:

A tailless whip scorpion, by Colin Hutton (reproduced here with permission)

• Spider eye-spots? The back end of pirate spiders look like the front end of nursery web spiders. Huh? Some amazing natural history – this is my Read Of The Week.
• Spiders can ‘sail across the water’. Indeed, they are sailors, as well as aviators.
• Sad to hear about the passing of spider enthusiast Bob Thomson –here’s a lovely write-up about his amazing life, and his interest in arachnids.
• The Dwarf Spider ID gallery. A truly amazing resource.
• A researcher finds some incredible spiders from Ecuador.
• Wolf spiders can be super common and abundance, especially those in the genus Pardosa – here’s a nice post about these thin-legged Lycosids.
• Boom: here is a DNA barcode reference library for Canadian spiders. Interestingly, the authors suggest diversity of spiders in Canada may be 30-50% higher current estimates.
• I have just returned from a trip to the Yukon – we found these critters, again:

• File this under ‘cool things you never knew before’ – black widow spider silk was used to make gun sight cross hairs in WWII.
• Personalities? Social Spiders? Here’s the link for you. 
• A terrific overview of tube-web spiders (Family Segestriidae).
• In this paper, a novel mating plug mechanism is described (along with a new species of Salticidae described)
• You can take a summer course about spiders, in Nantucket. Looks great!
• An excellent write-up about some recent research about black widow spiders, in which “Male black widow spiders destroy large sections of the female’s web during courtship and wrap it up in their own silk“.
• Brilliant jumping spiders – a bit of natural history about Phidippus clarus.
• Why the heck are we finding so many scorpions and spiders in our fruit… and should we worry? Here’s a good take on the topic.
• We are often enamored by courtship of jumping spiders, but wolf spider courtship is pretty great too!

Please note: I’m just heaving off to the Yukon for a couple of weeks of remote field work (it will involve arachnids!). Spiderday will likely return on 18 July.

Wow – this is a Thomisidae (crab spider) that’s an ant-mimic. In Australia, of course. Photo by Alex Wild.

• “An estimated 25,000 diving tarantulas live along a 10 kilometre stretch of floodplain“. Australia – you have the best arachnids. Honestly. This is my read of the week.
• Always good news when new spider species are described: here are ten new species from Madagascar. In this work, the authors document ‘remarkable’ local diversity within the genus Anelosimus. 
• Cuff links, spider style. Nice.
• The American Arachnological Society had its meeting last week: you can check out some tweets to gets a sense of the conference.
• Click here to read about a remarkable overreaction to finding a spider in bananas. Sigh.
• You just don’t hear about these critters very often: The formidable “jaws” of the solifugae (camel spiders, or wind scorpions). Not convinced…? Here you go:

• Scorpions, anyone? How about GIANT ones. An amazing post with stunning images that you just won’t believe!
• Some very handsome Opiliones (Harvestmen, or daddy-longlegs)
• This is from a while ago, but worth another read. The fastest land animal (scaled to relative body size) is… a MITE!
• Tips for tick safety. Worth a look.
• Here’s a great technique that arachnophiles are sure to use!

A spider hug.

• A spider species rediscovered in the UK, after over 100 years. A wonderful way that using “the web” can help science. My Read Of The Week.
• How do you trap a trap-door spiders? Use a lure, of course. What a great idea!
• We all know spiders as predators… but things eats spiders too. Here’s an overview of when spiders are prey.
• Magic spiders: Here’s some wonderful science about how a spider lures moths by using sexy smells.

A jumping spider found for the first time in Canada: Myrmarachne formicaria (photo by V. Levesque-Beaudin, reproduced here with permission)

• At the Grant Museum the “Specimen of the week” is an Opiliones. Lovely critters – and cousins to the other arachnids.
• On birds, lice, mites and a complicated, wonderful series of natural history notes and questions, from Heather Proctor.
• Burying beetles are well known for carrying passengers. These passengers are mites.
• Speaking of mites as passengers, here’s a paper that shows “Flies that are burdened by mites are expected to exhibit lower flight endurance compared to uninfected flies.” Yes… flies carry mites too.
• The world checklist of Quill Mites. Awesome.
• Here’s what tick eggs REALLY look like. 
• Here’s a video to accompany that last link – the life cycle of sheep tick, observed in laboratory conditions – this is kind of cool and kind of gross all at the same time:

Let’s get started:

A spider from Singapore: it vibrates its web at high speed if it’s threatened. Wow. Photo by Chthoniid, reproduced here with permission.

• Perhaps the best news of the week: a critically endangered spiders is saved from a planning development in the UK. Spider conservation FTW! That’s my read of the week.
• You must see this: from Nicky Bay (on Facebook) – a spider with an extended ‘tubercle’ on its abdomen. What’s it for??
• The Hippie Spider. That is all.
• Some surprising animals that like water. Spiders are on that list, don’t you know.
• Wonderful photos of a running crab spider mom.
• What happens if you ask undergraduate students to draw a spiders? The results are quite something! Some are amazingly accurate. Some are, well, not so accurate:

A spider of sorts.

• This is a simply fabulous post about figuring out whether or not you might have a brown recluse (spoiler: it’s #notabrownrecluse)
• Want to go on a safari? How about a spider safari? Sounds like fun to me.
• This is neat: spider and centipede venom evolved from insulin-like hormone.
• Cobweb Hotel (1936) – Um, it’s one of the oddest spider-themed youtube videos you will ever come across.
• This is a mitey good pun:

A mitey good pun.

• Family flees home after finding a spider egg sac. That’s an overreaction. Sigh.
• Tick watch: beyond Lyme disease
• Canadians: here are your high risk areas for Lyme disease
• Ticked off: here are things we DON’T know about Lyme disease
• Finally, your friendly Public Spider Announcement:

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:

Pseudoscorpions ‘catching a ride’ on an insect. Photo by Sean McCann

• Pseudoscorpions are among the most amazing (and understudied) of the Arachnids: small, wonderful animals with incredible biology. Catherine Scott wrote a simply terrific post about these lovely arachnids.
• Lyme disease is on the rise in Canada. Watch for ticks, folks.
• Poetry with a spider-theme. Here’s “A noiseless patient spider” by Walt Whitman.
• The musical, flirtatious side of a common spider. (this story was featured last week on Spiderday, but it’s great that the BBC picked it up)
• Yay! How great it is when people work through some of their fears about spiders:

• Here’s a photo and a bit of biology about a simply gorgeous Tarantula species from Colombia.
• Black widow spiders in your fruit? here’s a post that dispels some myths.
• If you are visiting London: A museum does an exhibit on spiders.
• A very handy guide to the eyes of spiders was making the rounds on the Twitterverse. I stupidly shared it without properly crediting the illustrator. (Sorry)
• Want to learn about the Anapidae? (A family of spiders) – here’s a post for you.
• Here’s a feature about Jurgen Otto and his dancing spiders.  You know, these ones:

© C.M. Buddle

First, amazing image of a developing spider:

Yes, they are adorable. (also, Cthulhu)

• Of, you know, it’s just wolf spiders singing and purring. Terrific research, and FTW, this site also has sound files!
• Spiders and Lego. Is there anything better? Wonderful post and really neat experiment!
• Wow – some amazing natural history here about a parasitoid wasp that affects a spider so that the web architecture is modified.
• Why are we so afraid of spiders? (A re-post of a re-post…the original is here)
• On the taxonomy side, here’s a revision of ant-mimicking spiders from the western Pacific. They are *very* nifty spiders.
• An important paper for spider taxonomists: Resolving the phylogeny of the Linyphiidae.
• The Velvet spiders: high society. 
• Spiders raining down on Australia: this story got a lot of press last week. Ballooning spiders really are wonderful, and although “mass ballooning” events may not be that common, they are natural!

A quick sketch of what it looks like when a spider “takes off” by ballooning.

• Surprise! Jumping spiders see more colours that you can…  (actually, I’m not that surprised)
• Congratulations to Arachnologist Dr. Maggy Hardy for being the “@RealScientists” this past week. She did a great job tweeting about SO many wonderful things, including arachnids.
• Spider-themed paper is the Presidential Award Winner (best paper from 2014) from the American Society of Naturalists.
• Arlo Pelegrin posted another great tweet showing more great spidery anatomy.
• First record of the Pseudoscorpion family Cheiridiidae from Iran.
• The brown dog tick has become resistant to permethrin: bad news for dog owners (um, and not great for dogs, either)
• You just don’t hear enough about Uropygids (whip scorpions). Here’s an overview of the Thelyphoninae.
• The top ten species were unveiled. A spider, of course, was among this list: the fabulous ‘cartwheeling’ spider… here’s a video of that species:

© C.M. Buddle (2015)

Here’s a stunning jumping spider: Habronattus americanus (by Sean McCann)

Some spidery links:

• Here’s a wonderful post about behavioural observations of mating strategies of jumping spiders (including the species featured in the photograph above). I especially like how this work was done under natural conditions.
• Spiders are raining down on parts of Australia (lucky them, I say!)
• Lots of spidery things happening in Australia: Here’s a post about how rainfall is ‘flushing out’ funnel web spiders… but they are needed for venom collection! Call your local arachnologist if you find one!
• An artist turns spider webs into amazing sculptures. Wow.
• Here’s som amazing art by Christi Belcourt, and if you scroll down you will see “Grandmother Spider”.
• Don’t know how I missed this paper back in January – looks fascinating! Community assembly on remote islands: a comparison of Hawaiian and Mascarene spiders

The other Arachnids:

Ticks: you should watch out for these. Photo by Alex Wild.

• Here’s an an excellent post about “Tickspotters” – resources to understand ticks, understand prevention. Here’s a related link that provides excellent Tick identification guides. Why all of this now? It’s Lyme Disease Awareness month, that’s why.
• Male mites are “not so clever” in showing preference for dead females.
• Here’s a report about how the destructive (to honey bees) Varroa mite *almost* made it to Australia.
• Some pretty incredible life history here: Matriphagy in pseudoscorpions (with Videos).

To finish, check out this Tweet: yes, folks, spiders eat spiders.

Thanks for following along! Keep me apprised of neat Arachnid stories, and I’ll include them in next week’s Spiderday.

© C.M. Buddle (2015)