"forest ruby" from Burma

"forest ruby" from Burma

The CAS entomologists are heading to the Philippines. We are Hannah Wood, Natalia Chousou Polydouri, and me (Charles Griswold). Hannah and Natalia are Berkeley PhD students with the joint CAS/UCB program. We are not just entomologists, we are arachnologists: we all study spiders! We’ll look for all the terrestrial arthropods, including insects, arachnids and myriapods, but spiders are our favorites. We’ll use yellow pans, berlese and winkler funnels, pitfalls, malaise traps for flying insects, we’ll shine a light on a sheet at night, and we’ll spend time hand collecting day and night. The last is my favorite: there’s almost nothing that I would rather do that walk around in the jungle at night looking for spiders. In particular we’ll be looking for goblin spiders, orb builders and the beautiful spiders that we call “rubies of the forest” (Stenochilidae: see the picture). Philippines arachnids are not very well known, so we hope to make some exciting discoveries.

Share This