These stunning pictures of the Australian Salticid, Maratus volans, were taken by Jurgen Otto and can be found on this Dutch website. Like many Salticids, this tiny jumping spider has a marked sexual dimorphism. Known as the peacock spider, the male – like the bird he is named after – has amazing irridiscent markings.
Courting a female [...]
November 2007
Dr David Penney, from the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, a.k.a. Spider Dave, has used Very High Resolution X-Ray Computed Tomography to dissect a 1mm spider that has been preserved in amber for 53 MY. Amazing pictures. The spider is a male. How can you tell?
BBC news item; original Zootaxa article (open access).
Quiz answer – [...]
October 2007
You might think that inner cities have very little in the way of wildlife, and certainly nothing left to discover. You’d be wrong. A survey of spider biodiversity in Antwerp has unearthed a new species of Tangleweb spider.
BBC picture of the spider; Antwerp Spider Research Project page.
October 2007
Well, that’s how the intro song goes on this video. Probably aimed at my kids rather than you lot, but then, so’s Spongebob Squarepants, which doesn’t stop you watching it. Those of you who’ve done the Evolution of Animals course will know that Whip Scorpions aren’t scorpions. Or spiders. They are whip scorpions (Amblypiga). You may have seen [...]
April 2007
Some spiders fluoresce, it appears. We have a huge collection of spiders in the Museum, and a world expert on them, in the person of Dmitri Lugunov. Any 2nd year or Placement student interested in this might want to think about doing a survey of which groups of spiders fluoresce, and why…
