Monday, October 31, 2005

A 'LOST WORLD' BATTLE: " Sun scorpion caught in the web of a black widow spider"
Canadian Arachnologist: Arachnology (spiders, mites, etc) & Arachnologists in Canada"The Canadian Arachnologist is an annual newsletter, freely distributed the first week of May. The goals of this newsletter are to profile Canadian arachnologists, publish feature articles, announce conference details and other news of value, help foster a sense of community and encourage collaboration. Past issues of the newsletter and feature articles are posted under Newsletters. Article submissions received by mid-April will be reviewed for the upcoming newsletter."

Friday, October 28, 2005

Spiders of North America: "This beautifully illustrated guide to the spider genera of North America, north of Mexico, provides over 1400 illustrations and keys to the genera in 68 spider families. Over 550 genera are included."

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

The Exciting Adventures of Spider Man: "Hundreds of glass vials with rubber stoppers sit in boxes on Norman I. Platnick's desk at the American Museum of Natural History, stacked like atoms in a crystal lattice. Inside the vials, magnified and refracted by the glass and the liquid it contains, are creatures ranging from itsy-bitsy to huge and hairy." (NYT article on Platnick, reg. req. via 6th intl. )

Monday, October 17, 2005

Spider fooled into sex by drop-dead male: "Over millions of years of sexual conflict, males of the nursery web spider have evolved their novel mating strategy, not seen before in nature, report Trine Bilde and her colleagues. Ms Bilde called the male's plan - which happened in half the cases observed by the scientists - 'death feigning in the face of sexual cannibalism'."

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

African Spider Craves Human Blood: "Scientists have discovered a spider in East Africa with a craving for human blood. They say the spider (Evarcha culicivora- a jumping spider), which hunts blood-sucking female mosquitoes, is the only animal known to select its prey based on what the prey has eaten. The spider is the also first known predator that deliberately feeds on vertebrate blood by eating mosquitoes." One of the researchers works at my lab.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

The Fairy Tale World of Henry McCook: " Illustrations of Anthropomorphic Arthropods in the 19th Century" This page is called scalp dance and caudata's cocoons. (via PK)

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Thursday, October 06, 2005

Biologia Centrali-AmericanaA wonderful scanned volume of central american arachnids.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Spider 'is 20 million years old': "A scientist has described a spider that was trapped and preserved in amber 20 million years ago"
Middle-Fork: Spiders Archives Lots of nice spider photos