Return of "Arachtober!"

Like your favorite horror movie trilogy, sequel, or whatever, Flickr's group "Arachtober" returns with a vengeance(?) this month. It has become an annual treat for arachnophiles and macro photographers, but perhaps a cruel trick on arachnophobes.

Female Philodromus sp. guarding egg sac

This year's edition has special meaning for me because I have been contracted to write a new field guide to U.S. spiders for Princeton University Press. I am also responsible for furnishing images, despite having a small budget for image acquisition. Preceding authors of Princeton guides have set a high standard for image quality, and I feel an obligation to publish the best photos I can get my hands on.

Web of Labyrinth Spider, Metepeira sp.

Arachtober manages to recruit several new participants each year through word of mouth, blogs, and sheer curiosity. Not only spiders, but scorpions, ticks, mites, harvestmen, and all other arachnids are eligible for inclusion. The only hard and fast rule is that the image you post to the group must not have appeared on your own Flickr photostream previously.

Female Southern Black Widow, Latrodectus mactans

Overall, interest in spiders seems to be increasing among the general public. Judging by the many new groups that have been created on Facebook, turnouts at special exhibits like "Eight-legged Encounters," new blogs, and other indications, arachnids are achieving a much higher profile than ever before. This is great news, for there is still a great deal of work to be done to combat myth, superstition, misinformation, and fear.

Male jumping spider, Hentzia palmarum

Please consider contributing to "Arachtober" on Flickr, or find another way to dedicate some time to sharing your spider observations, questions, or images. There is much you can contribute to our collective knowledge by doing so.

When "Arachtober" Attacks!

October is one of my favorite months, made all the sweeter in the last three years because I have participated in the “Arachtober” group on Flickr.

Many folks who photograph insects and other small animals save the spider images they have accrued over the year to share with the Arachtober pool. This is because one of the few rules of the group is that you post only those images that have not appeared on your Flickr photostream previously. It is worth the wait.

Sometimes, participants forget that there are other arachnids besides spiders: mites, ticks, scorpions, whipscorpions, pseudoscorpions, harvestmen, and others. A few members of the group actually find things like ticks to be too disgusting to embrace even in the artistic sense. A few scorpions and “daddy long-legs” pictures will still manage to appear, though.

The biggest challenge to Arachtober’s popularity this year may be the graphic changes brought to Flickr as a whole by its new owner, Yahoo!. Fewer people view my own photostream any more because of the new format that has rendered Flickr just a shadow of its former clean, aesthetic past. The initial outrage demonstrated by the Flickr faithful has either faded, been completely ignored by Yahoo!, or both. The future of photosharing may be Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram, but mobile devices really don’t do quality images justice.

All the same, I invite you not only to follow Arachtober daily, but to participate as well by sharing your own images of all things eight-legged. Thank you.