• In the spirit of Halloween (last week), here’s four spooky videos of spiders weaving webs.

• Fact: Spiders are adorable….

• RECLUSE SPIDERS NOW IN CUBA! (gotcha… but you don’t need to panic … this paper describes new Loxosceles from the West Indies)

• Look if you dare… Ancient spider family album.

• A feel-good story about spiders: the “spider queen” brings tarantulas back to a wilderness area.

• Be glad you live in this century. The process of ‘de-infestation’ was not pretty.

• Aha ha.  It’s a species of Australian sphecid wasp This is a simply WONDERFUL list of curious zoological names. 

• Steampunk, clockwork Goliath Beetle.  I want this. Available from BrazenDevice (thanks, Evan, for allowing me to post the photo here. Ento-geeks will love it!)

• On the theme of amazing beetles, these beetles show there is such a thing as a free lunch. 

• History on a pin: An insect from 1702.

• Biodiversity: it’s the box that we can’t even imagine the outside of. A nifty post Pxay eyaye si ayioang fpeio.

• The Echinoblog...check out this blog description: Echinodermata! Starfish! Sea Urchins! Sea Cucumbers! Stone Lillies! Feather Stars! Blastozoans! Sea Daisies! Marine invertebrates found throughout the world’s oceans with a rich and ancient fossil legacy. Their biology and evolution includes a wide range of crazy and wonderful things. Let me share those things with YOU! ….The question is: How did I ever miss this blog. Awesome.

• Silken wonders: We talked about webspinners in my Entomology class last week. That lecture took me to this informative post. These animals are lovely.

• #SixSecondInsects. A big bug.

• A story of two bugs. Ha ha… fooled you… not the bugs you were thinking of.

• Ecosystem Services … from beyond the grave. 

• More on Halloween. Including MAGGOT ART!!

• From the Biodiversity Heritage Library, and also in the spirit of Halloween, a beautiful bat for you:

• Read here: the most amazing University Libraries. 

• Interpersonnel Botany: intersection between people, print and botany, 1700-1900. WOW!

• Of lice and men: an itchy history.

• How about lice and elephants? These are truths not lice.

• Fitting animals on Noah’s Ark. Fascinating story about a 17th century scholar.

• Tweet of the week goes to Leonard Nimoy (Ok this is NOT at all obscure, but it sure is funny):

• …if you are in love—that’s a good thing—that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Something from Steinbeck. 

• Just look at this HUGE periodic table for your wall.

• Some pretty powerful poetry, from a Canadian spoken word poet.

• Hey looks – A to Z of Entomology… featuring Simon Leather!

• So much hype about deadly spiders in the UK – thankfully BUG GIRL TO THE RESCUE. Go read her post, folks.

• Here’s another measured and rational post about false widow spiders in the UK.

• Monstrous verminous – some thinking about why we fear bugs.

• Jumping spiders – an evolutionary love story. 

• The Entomological Society’s annual meeting ended last week – here’s Sean McCann’s wrap-up post (and photos)

• Here’s Crystal Ernst’s take on post-conference excitement, and an honest portrayal of struggles in grad school. An important read (you’re not alone).

• At that conference, David Shorthouse put together a really amazing tool – a twitter capture tool that links bugs to literature. 

• Just prior to that conference there was a photo workshop hosted by Alex Wild. Here are some of the stunning images from that workshop.

• Speaking of images from that workshop, here’s a black widow for you, taken by Alex (thanks for the permission to use your photos here, Alex!)

• Neat paper by Nash Turley et al. Habitat patch shape determines herbivory and fruit production in an annual plant.

• Tick collector – expect the unexpected... up your nose.

• Comic Ant-thology. Very awesome.

• Roll that poo. Dung beetle game awaits…

• You wil BEE amazed at these SEM images from the Smithsonian magazine blog.

• A must-have t-shirt for Entomologist – Eat. Sleep. Collect.

• Good luck, Sam.

• A clew of worms. A clutter of spiders. A murder of crows. Here’s an amazing site with a rather impressive list of collective nouns. 

• Pronunciation of biological latin names. Wow – I make a lot of mistakes. (thanks, Ted for that link)

• The latin name discussion came in part from the best hashtag I’ve seen in a while – #ReplaceWordsWithBugs. This also made it difficult to highlight a tweet of the week. Even though there is debate about how to pronounce “…..dae” at the end of family names, this is still a winner, from Adrian Tchaikovsky:

• VRAK. How to sound like a frog in 10 languages.  (thanks Heidi for that link!)

• Creepy and cool science art: Trilobite boy. 

• Heat a house or a body? My colleague and friend Murray Humphries recently published a paper about city-scale human thermoregulation - bottom line: put on a sweater!

• I love this post by Derek Hennen about the value of twitter to a young scientist. Well said, Derek.

• Liz Neely writes about ‘warmth’ in scientists and in science communication  - very thought provoking.

• In the spirit of Halloween… BLOODY FINGERS! Yum yum.

• Students text a lot during class. In my opinion, this means there’s also a problem with the content and/or instructor. Students need to engage, but Profs must also adapt. Right -so I will have to write  blog post on this (stay tuned)

• The irrational fear of GM foods. 

• McGill is entering the world of MOOCs —> first up, Food for Thought.

• How professors are using social media - nifty infographic.

• Speaking of nifty - turn your i-phone into a microscope!

• Darwin’s son draws some pretty lovely pictures!

• Here’s a Halloween-themed “Simon’s Cat”, featuring a spider:

• A spider did not bite you. I LOVE THIS!

• Ohhh ahhh – a ‘gnome hat spider’ (as dubbed by Adrian Thysse)

• Spiders certainly are economically important: Toyota recalls vehicles due to ‘spider-related problems’. (thanks Bug Girl for tweeting that story)

• “Big-Ass Spider Movie” NO. NO. NO. (here’s a review –> read it, ok?)

• Poor spiders. So much bad press. Time for a lovely photo, perhaps? This one is a lynx spider from Crystal Ernst (Thanks, Crystal, for letting me post it here)

• The most interesting rove beetle in the world?  Ok, I’ll bite. Have a look!  (from Stelio Chatzimanolis)

• More beetles to cheer about: here are 85 new species of some beauties. 

• Evolution of color: from stick insects to peppered moths. A terrific read.

• 46 million year old fossil mosquito – with blood. It’s great when these stories about insects hit the ‘big’ news sites (from my Canadian perspective, this is CBC, of course)

• Determining arthropod abundance and diversity in urban habitats. Neat looking paper on that topic.

• I know you want it… the tweet of the week goes to the Logical Narwhal.

• Death of an order. (insect order, that is). An intriguing paper about Termites and their relatives (thanks to students in my introductory Entomology class for pointing out this paper, and the associated controversy)

• Interested in insect photography? Check out these thoughts about ‘just another bug on white’

• Pest managers are ecologists too. Darn right they are.

• Ever feel like your social calendar looks like this? (from “Wrong Hands“)

• All about grapes – in-depth, fascinating post by Malcolm Campbell. 

• A day in the life of a professor. 

• Creating an inclusive, professional blog. 

• In praise of exploratory statistics. 

• How field biologists die. Yes, driving cars in the riskiest thing we can do. But murder? WHAT?

• Children experiencing ‘wild lands’ is so important. 

• Discovering wonder in science. Some lovely writing by Kim Moynahan.

• Dreaming of the north: Time lapse video of an Arctic sunset.

• The unexpected world of biology: creature cast. Cool.

• To finish… an Icelandic Hymn – in a train station. Wow (thanks Jamin!)

• New spiders! Two new species of burrowing spiders from Uruguay.

• Run and hide everyone in the UK RUN AND HIDE! MILLIONS OF SPIDERS ON THE LOOSE. (but seriously folks, relax. This is not journalism.  (thanks to my UK friend, e.g., Graham Scott, for tweeting me this story)

• A moth that mimics a spiders. Nature is wonderful.

• Something small. That is all.

• Congrats to Daniel Llavaneras on finding something very special.

• Twig tethered to a twig: a caterpillar has Ted a wee bit stumped. 

• Bugshot was down in Belize – some lovely buggy & spidery images are posted here. 

• Speaking of bugshot, here’s one of Nash Turley‘s pics from that adventure (Thanks, Nash, for letting me post it here!)

• Students in my intro Entomology class are teaching me a lot (they are lecturing on the Insect Orders). Last week, I learned of Desert Locusts that can swim, underwater. (note: they ‘can’ but they don’t necessarily ‘do’ the swimming.)

• My students also told me of the hip, cool family of Orthoptera called…. Cooloolidae. Yeah, that’s awesome.

• Diesel exhaust screws up the ability of honeybees to forage. I’m not surprised by this, but still glad the study was done.

• Bees hop between green roofs. 

• Weather forecasting by insects……

• Why are there no ants north of the treeline? It seems that should have been answered by myrmecologists already…. discussions on twitter suggest this may not be the case…? Or perhaps Francoeur’s ideas are spot-on…?

• Speaking of Ants – how about thinking of Universities like Ant colonies – a fascinating post by Terry McGlynn over at small pond science.

• You like ants?  What about a jumping spider that looks like an ant? Here you go:

A species of jumping spider in the genus Peckhamia (photo by Alex Wild, reproduced here with permission)

• Got the sniffles? Maybe you’ve got a tick… maybe it’s a new species…?

• Beware of the warble fly... yikes! (thanks H. Stiles!)

• Heading the the Entomological Society of Canada’s annual meeting in a couple of weeks?  Check out the AWESOME (and free!) workshops.

• Fly regurgitation and Art. Yeah, I’m serious –> check this out (Thanks Claudio Gratton for that link)

• More on insects and art: here is something ridiculously interesting – bee and beetle models.

• Over at the Boreal Beetle – an eloquent post about finding, reading and appreciating ‘old’ literature

• Centipede venom might be a pretty good painkiller! 

• Bug Girl is now posting over at Wired Science… “Charismatic Minifauna“. Worth a follow!

• Beetles collected by Darwin! Have a look…

• Tweet of the week goes to …  Erin McKiernan. This is awesome. Don’t worry: My neighbours think I’m crazy too. I’ve been caught running up and down the street with a sweep net.

• Animal animal. Totally tautonyms. (thanks Heidi for tweeting that!)

• Cowardice in Academia: a very important message for those who sit on tenure review board (thanks to Alan Townsend for writing that post)

• Science reporter spoofs hundreds of Open Access journals with fake papers. 

• Um, fix all your lectures, people: new fossils push the origin of plants back 100 million years.

• Underdogs: the them of a new Malcolm Cladwell book. Here’ s nifty interview with the author.

• So many reasons to love Patrick Stewart. However, here’s another one.

• Communicate this: Science has a special issue devoted to communication in science. 

• What exactly is a doctorate? 

• Why are there still so few women in Academia. An excellent piece.

• XKCD has a good one:  Penumbra. I learned something new.

• Hobbit fans! Some never-before-seen art by Tolkien.

• Robotic jungle - a wired woodland. 

• On robots: here’s a Wild Cat: This is both terrifying and amazing:

A species of jumping spider in the genus Peckhamia (photo by Alex Wild, reproduced here with permission)

So, what does this species do? What are its behaviours? Where does it live?

I started digging around to see what literature exist on this species. There are certainly many publications that discuss its distribution – it is on many checklists (see here for a relatively complete list), and I was aware that it was originally described as Synemosyna picata (by Hentz, in 1846).

I did a search of Web of Science for publications with the species name, and came up with two hits. One was a systematics papers on a related genus of jumping spider, and the second was a paper by Durkee et al. in 2011*.  They did some laboratory studies of the species, to assess whether or not its ant-like appearance helped it avoid being eaten by predators (spoiler: the answer is yes). A little more digging on-line took me to various sites, and in some cases, I came across this statement:  “almost no information on them“

What?  Really?

A Peckhamia picata, from Quebec (Photo by J. Brodeur, reproduced here with permission)

Peckhamia picata is a widespread species, with an incredible appearance, and it’s a jumping spider!  Salticids are the darling of the arthropod world –> the panda bears of the invertebrates: big eyes, furry, fascinating courtship behaviours, and truckloads of ‘personality’.  Surely we know SOMETHING about what I declared as my favourite species.

Thankfully, in a filing cabinet in my laboratory, I have a series of older publications on the Salticidae, including “A Revision of the Attidae of North America” by Peckham & Peckham (1909) [available here as a PDF download - note: big file!]. The George and Elizabeth Peckham did an incredible amount of work on the Salticidae (called Attidae, previously). The Peckhams are themselves a fascinating story – some details are on their Wikipedia page  and I’ll summarize briefly: they were teachers (in Wisconsin), natural historians, behavioural ecologists and taxonomists, notably with jumping spiders.  The bulk of their work was done in the late 1800s, and they often cited and discussed Darwinian concepts. They were awesome and I would have liked to meet them.

Another stunning Peckhamia species, this one from Thomas Shahan.

So, back to Peckamia picata: Their 1909 tome states the following about the species “We have described in detail its mating and general habits in Vol. II, Part 1 of the Occ. Pap. Nat. Hist. Soc. Wis. pp. 4-7)”.

So, apparently 1909 does not take us far enough back in history to learn about Peckhamia picata. Their paper from 1892 had all the details, and thankfully was fully accessible on the biodiversity heritage library.

Here is some of the lovely writings about Peckhamia picata, from the Peckhams, in 1892 (transcribed from their papers):

About appearance:

“While picata is ant-like in form and colour, by far the most deceptive thing about it is the way it which it moves. It does not jump like the other Attidae [Salticidae], nor does it walk in a straight line, but zig-zags continually from side to side, exactly like an ant which is out in search of booty. This is another illustration of which Wallace has shown in relation to butterflies ...”

(note: The Peckhams give a node to that Wallace guy….)

About feeding behaviour:

“Spiders commonly remain nearly motionless while they are eating; picata, on the other hand, acts liks an ant which is engaged in pulling some treasure-trove into pieces convenient for carrying I have noticed a female picata which, after getting possession of a gnat, kept beating it with her front legs as she ate, pulling it about in different directions, and all the time twitching her ant-like abdomen“

Regarding courtship:

From the Peckham’s 1892 publication.

“His abdomen is lifted vertically so that it is at right angle to the plane of the cephalothorax. in this position he sways from side to side. After a moment he drops the abdomen, runs a few steps nearer the female, then then tips his body and begins to sway again. Now he runs in one direction, now in another, pausing every few moments to rock from side to side and to bend his brilliant legs so that she may look full at them.”

In sum, this journey of discovery has made me fall in love with Peckhamia picata even more. It’s also reminded me that OLD literature is essential to our current understanding of the species we identify. There is a wealth of information in these “natural history” papers – although the writing is in a different style, it is scientific, it is the foundation of current biodiversity science.  We cannot ignore these older books and “Occasional papers”. We can’t rely on quick internet searches and we certainly can’t rely on literature indexed on Web of Science.

We must dig deep and far into the past. There are ‘treasure-troves’ aplenty.

—————–

*The oldest paper cited in Durkee et al. is from 1960. They did not cite the Peckhams.

Another Peckhamia species, courtesy of Matt Bertone (reproduced here, with permission)

References:

Durkee, C. A. et al. 2011. Ant Mimicry Lessens Predation on a North American Jumping Spider by Larger Salticid Spiders. Environmental Entomology 40(5): 1223-1231

Peckham, G.W., and E.G. Peckham. 1892. Ant like spiders of the family Attidae Occ. Pap. Nat. Hist. Soc. Wis. II, 1 .

Peckham, G.W., and E.G. Peckham. 1909. Revision of the Attidae of North America. Trans. Wis. Academy of Sci., Arts & Letters. Vol. XVI, 1(5), 355-646.

Here are some things I stumbled across this week:

• Bites from black widows.. a worthy read on the topic.  Note these important sentences: “But despite their fearsome reputation, black widows are surprisingly shy and retiring. Over the course of your life, you have probably walked past hundreds of black widows without even realizing it“

• Many Entomologists are Arachnophobic. (yes, two more legs can make a big difference)

• For the Arachnophobic entomologists: here’s a field guide for you (thanks Bug Girl for tweeting this!!)

• Why don’t spiders stick to their webs? Here’s a video that gives you the answer….

• Jumping spider poster! Jumping spider poster! Jump for joy!

• Some jumping spiders are amazing mimics of ants. Some jumping spiders snatch food from the mandibles of ants.

• Right, so now you are ready for a jumping spider photograph, courtesy of Tom Houslay (thanks, Tom, for permission to post it here!)

Phidippus regius having lunch, by T. Housley

• Tast-testing with your study organisms. “Not all aphids taste the same”. How about that!

• You can also let your study organisms bite or sting you. Sheesh!

• New species of bee named after Canadian bee expert, Cory Sheffield. Congrats, Cory!

• Wallace’s butterflies were lost. And found again. In a museum, by a 17 year old student. Awesome.

• Pest resistance to Bt corn – a paper out of Africa.

• Termite mounds and a (not-quite-true) bioinspirational story.

• A beautiful collection of insects. Wow.

• Want another beautiful insect, here’s a photo of Megalopyge opercularis [YES, THIS IS A CATERPILLAR!] courtesy of Matt Bertone. Um, despite its cute, furry and cuddly appearance, don’t play with it, please. (thanks Matt, for allowing me to post your image here)

• Sick pets make us think about why we empathize with animals. Malcolm Campbell wrote an excellent post on the topic. And he even quotes E.T. in the blog post (I remember that movie well…)

• How birds got their wings. Great story from McGill researchers!

• Another reason I love McGill University – my employer.

• Montreal’s Ecosystems at your service… an official launch happening this week!

• What scientists should talk about: their personal stories.

• On the topic of personal stories, a very lovely post over at the boreal beetle: “My Voyage(er)”

• Attention grad students: Get those papers out during your PhD - it’s the number 1 factor determining 10-year publication rate.

• A “refreshingly simple” guide for twitter. Aimed at teachers, but relevant to many…

• Is twitter making our kids smarter?

• More on twitter – here’s how to cite a tweet in an academic paper.

• Tweet of the week to… Amy Brown – I like this idea!

• Follow the money: what really matters when choosing a journal. Excellent post over at Dynamic Ecology.

• Sigh. Woman stabs roommate for refusing to stop listening to the Eagles. 

• When a garden ornament is a bit too realistic…

• Peripheral vision is weird. Don’t believe me? Go here.

• For some laughs, and for cats, check this out.

• To finish, so proud of my son, aspiring guitarist. Here he is, rockin’ out (with one of his friends on drums, and his guitar instructor on bass):

• Perhaps the best entomology story of last week is… the insects with gears in its legs by Ed Yong

• That being said, a close runner-up is this one: sometimes poop happens if you are persistent.

• Don’t believe me? Well here’s a photo from that blog post (reproduced here, with permission)
  

  (photo copyright C. Ernst)

• Tarantula venom & insecticides.

• Harvestman munching on a mushroom!

• Arachnophobic Entomologists. Yup, it’s true! Entomology today reports…

• Sea spiders! Nope – not arachnids… but rather Pycnogonids! These are really fascinating animals – here’s a nice paper about them, from Matthew Cobb.

• Speaking of oceans and arthropods, check out this neat post over at Why Evolution is True.  Twitter is at its best with these kinds of science discussions.

• We know so little. A mystery about mites with feathery legs. 

• Bug spray 2.0

• Great looking paper about forest tent caterpillars in eastern Canada, by Chris MacQuarrie & coauthors.

• On the relationship between the pacific ‘garbage patch’ and insects. (thanks Cay!)

• On the relationship between grizzly bears and moths….

• Entomological methods: Derek Hennen explains Berlese funnels.

• The path of least resistance. A wonderful post about evolution, from Malcolm Campbell. I love this quote:  ”Evolution shows us that, contingent on the forces that shape them, paths of least resistance can lead to stunning innovation“

• Ok, I know you are now ready for a spider photograph, courtesy of Thomas Shahan (reproduced here, with permission)

Jumping spiders are the best.

• My favourite Scientist.

• Travel to the Galapagos…. with Google Street View.

• Natural History & desk-based ecology. 

• On writing well – terrific post by Sarah Boon (something I missed in last week’s Expiscor – oops!)

• For ecologists… A conversation with Bob Paine. Amazing!

• Navigating personal-professional boundaries in science.

• And the tweet of the week is courtesy of Meghan Drrns:

• Speaking of twitter – please follow along with my field biology class! Tweets starting this week, watch for #ENVB222

• On the topic of teaching – do students learn more from non-Tenure-track staff?

• Attention undergraduate students: Some thoughts about emailing your Profs 

• Are we too busy and overworked to think creatively? Terry McGlynn offers a perspective on this.

• How Chris McCandless died - a more scientific take on some of the mystery surrounding his death in Alaska.

• In praise of Buddleia - the butterfly bush names in honour of the Reverend Adam Buddle. I must see if I’m related to this botanist!

• And a spidery video to finish things off. So awesome:

First up, a lovely shot from Morgan Jackson, a Micropezidae fly (genus Raineria)

An Expiscor favourite Adrian Thysse submitted this photo, with the following comment: My ‘favourites’ change every week, but here is a shot that was one of themost popular images at the Bug Jamboree at the Ellis Bird Farm last Saturday. It is a meadowhawk, Sympetrum sp. , taken with very shallow depth of field to smooth-out the background and to accentuate those magnificent eyes.

Next, another awesome fly, from Rachel Graham:

Warren Sarle submitting this photo – lovely little jumping spiders!

The next photo comes with a story, here’s what Matt Bertone writes about this image:

I was walking on a trail near our local lake (Raleigh, NC, USA), when I came upon a harvestman. I didn’t think much of it until I saw this tiny ceratopogonid sucking hemolymph out of its leg. I had been wanting to find this phenomenon, so I took a couple photos (others show the whole scene) and then was on my way to find new subjects. After posting on facebook and having Chris Borkent comment on it, I sent the photo to Art Borkent, a world expert on punkies. He was amazed at what I had found – Opiliones as a host was only recorded once ever, and only in Brazil. I was kicking myself for not getting the specimen, but at least the shot turned out well!

Ok, time to move away from the “All Arthropod” show… here’s an image of my own and here’s the story: Last week I was in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, doing field work. While doing a “tundra walk” one afternoon, we stumbled across a tiny patch of Asters, tucked in among some rocks. It was a beautiful moment because it was very late season, and we observed very few flowers. However, these stunning Asters took my breath away. Delicate, beautiful, fragile.

The clichés are true. I’ve been north many times, and each time the effect is stronger. Each time the landscape leaves a deeper impression. Over a couple of blog posts, I want to share reflections about the Arctic from my recent field trip to Cambridge Bay (Nunavut), and try to explain why I love it so much, and why Arctic research is my passion. I’ll also share a few of my favourite photographs from the trip.

Arctic Arthropods

I often write that “Arctic biodiversity is dominated by arthropods” and I stand firmly behind that statement. Despite the latitude of Cambridge Bay (at 69 degrees North), the tundra is alive with butterflies, bees, low-flying dipterans, and spiders.  On a warm day, you can sit in the tundra and watch the careful movements of spiders as they navigate their three-dimensional world, seeking prey, or simply sunning themselves.  Over the past few years our research team has documented over 300 species of spiders living across the Arctic and sub-Arctic, and although diversity drops at high latitudes, there are still over 20 species known from the low Arctic Islands, dropping to fewer than a dozen as you approach 80 degrees North.

Arctic wolf spider (Lycosidae), genus Alopecosa

Under rocks in flowing water you can find black fly larvae, swaying in the current. Sometimes you find the shield-shaped pupal cases, and if lucky, you can see the emerging adults. These emerging adults are sometimes adorned with red mites. There are arthropods living within the protection of Arctic willow; careful examination of Salix reveals red ‘berries’ which are actually galls. Opening these reveals a hidden life. A secret, protected room containing the larvae of a Hymenoptera.

An Arctic Lepidoptera (genus Boloria)

Research

A few years ago, the Federal Government announced a new Canadian High Arctic Research Station (CHARS), and it is to be built in Cambridge Bay over the next several years. This station will support and facilitate research in the North, in many different ways, from studies about effects of climate change on permafrost, to research on marine mammals. I am going to do my own research in Cambridge Bay, but with the aim of integrating research about arthropod biodiversity with other Arctic studies. I also hope to help in the development of a long-term monitoring plan, using arthropods as one of the focal taxon. Arthropods can tell us a lot about the world, and how it is changing, and long-term data are needed to ensure we have a clear sense of when ‘change’ is change that we need to pay particularly close attention to.

A malaise trap on the tundra – designed to collect flying insects

I was in Cambridge Bay to start to develop these kinds of projects, and to get to know the town, community and the land.  I also wanted to collect insects and spiders in the Arctic in the late-season. I’ve worked in the Arctic a lot over the last several years, and although we have done full-season (i.e., June-August) collecting on the mainland, our laboratory does not yet have a clear idea about seasonal occurrence of different species occurring on the Arctic islands. Therefore, I was doing some collecting so that data could be gathered about arthropods on Victoria island and the end of the summer. For all these reasons, Cambridge Bay was my ‘research home’ for a week or so.

History and People.

Arctic regions of Canada have a rich history – and a history that is both tragic and awe-inspiring. Residential schools, relocation programs and stories of substance abuse, are all part of the darker side of this history. For hundreds of years, Europeans saw the Arctic as a wild land that required navigating, and a land that contained a bounty of riches, from whales to minerals. A bounty that was available for the taking. The stories are remarkable, and evidence of them remain in places like Cambridge Bay, including the influence of the Catholic church and the wreck of Amundsen’s ship, the Maud.  The search for Franklin’s lost ships continues – while I was in Cambridge Bay, a ship departed, in search of the Erebus and the Terror.

The remnants of a Catholic church, built in Cambridge Bay in the early 1950s

The Maud, in its resting place. The townsite of Cambridge Bay is visible in the background

There has been a rebirth, however – Nunavut is a place of Inuit pride, and includes a wonderful balance between old traditions and new. The Inuit are marvellous – a people exhibiting patience, perseverance, kindness, good humour, and ingenuity. I heard stories of how runners on sleds could be made of frozen bodies of Arctic char, and the cross-braces from bones of wildlife, and frozen mosses would adorn the tops. If times were really tough, parts of the sled were edible.  Today, wood and rope is the preferred construction material!

Sled on the tundra: waiting for winter.

Inuit culture is alive and well. I was lucky to spend time on the land with some of the locals, and I learned of edible plants, leaves that can be burned to ward of mosquitoes, and about the lice on arctic hare pelts.  The Inuit are also fabulously artistic, well known for their carvings from bones and fur.

Looking out towards the Northwest Passage.

Stay tuned for Part 2, to come next week…

Inuit carvers are known world-wide for their depictions of Muskox, polar bears, seals, and other wildlife.  ”Bugs”, however, are rare as pieces of art from the Inuit. I was therefore thrilled to see a mosquito made from sealskin at a shop in Cambridge Bay, made by a local artist. It’s a wonderful depiction! And the mozzie looks almost cute and cuddly….

Sealskin mosquito

Another local carver, Johnny, comes by our place with some regularity. Earlier this week I chatted with him about my interest in insects and spiders and he looked at me with a twinkle in his eye. “I’ve never done any bugs before, let me think about that” were his words.  I believed him – I have travelled in the Arctic quite a bit, and have never come across a carving that depicts arthropods.

Last night there was a knock at the door. Johnny approached, holding out his arthropod, made from caribou antlers. WOW. I was so touched that he went away and worked on this carving for me. To me, it looks like a spider, which is quite fitting.

Inuit carving of an arthropod (a spider, in my opinion!)

UPDATE (11 Aug) - Johnny came by the house again last night. He allowed me to take his picture, and I’ll share it with you, here.

The artist: Johnny Udlaoyak Jr., of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.