In this week’s roundup of arachnid art, news, and science:
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons delights tarantula lovers
- another animal behaviour conference cancelled due to COVID-19
- 7 new species of peacock jumping spiders
- taxonomy shenanigans
…and more!
Tag: what i’m writing
Arachnews: March 16, 2020
In this week’s roundup of arachnid art, news, and science:
- amazing nature photos (including two possibly undescribed species!)
- the latest #PruittData developments
- breaking down that mouse vs. scorpion fight from Netflix’s Earth at Night
- a new genus of (adorable) African jumping spiders
- the “are horseshoe crabs arachnids?” debate returns
Arachnews: March 9, 2020
New issues of Systematic and Applied Acarology, Experimental and Applied Acarology, and Acarologia means lots and lots of mite papers this week. There’s also nematodes, hair- and/or eyebrow-raising medical case studies, pretty spider photos, bacterial endosymbionts, and more.
Arachnews: March 2, 2020
In this week’s roundup of all things arachnid (mostly spiders this week, though):
- cool nature photos and videos; egg sacs seem to be a theme
- debunking the latest viral scare about cork-lid trapdoor spiders
- research about not-so-parasitic mites, medical uses of venom, and tarantula embryonic development
- extremely weird new species
…and more!
Arachnews: February 10, 2020
In this week’s Arachnews:
- #PruittData hits the mainstream media, plus more insight from biologists
- 3D horseshoe crab fossils
- lots of new research on medical applications of scorpion and spider venom
- some absolutely gorgeous tarantulas
- a truly bonkers paper on spider husbandry
…and more!
Arachnews: February 3, 2020
In this week’s Arachnews:
- a roundup of #PruittData news
- Sydney funnel-web season in Australia
- jumping spiders in eyeliner
- the secret to capturing moths with spider silk
- new species named after mathematician Cedric Villani; Gollum; Mithra; and the Gullah and Amazigh people
…and more!
Arachnews: January 27, 2020
In this week’s Arachnews:
- a surprising discovery about dragline silk
- how to extract and observe face mites (you don’t need much more than a microscope!)
- the evolution of aquatic spiders
- circadian rhythms in spiders and mites
- as always, new species and geographic records
…and more!
Arachnews: January 20, 2020
This week’s Arachnews is a shorter one, as I’m catching up on a backlog of papers to sort. In this edition: charismatic Habronattus jumping spiders, the return of Silkhenge, fallout of the Australian bushfires, the latest volley in the are-horseshoe-crabs-arachnids debate, and more!
Arachnews: January 13, 2020
In this week’s Arachnews: spider/human jam sessions, the European spider of the year, Australian bushfires and the Arthropocalypse, tracking ticks, name changes and newly described species, and more.
Arachnews: January 6, 2020
In 2020, we’re switching to weekly—because there’s just too much art, writing, news, and scientific research for a measly monthly digest. In this edition:
- funny & educational Twitter threads
- tattoos!
- social spider evolution
- how mites and spiders cope with heat
- new recluse spider in Mexico
- new South African widow spider (with purple silk)!
- a glossary of the jargon I used in the article
and more! Read it on Medium.