SpiderIdentification.org

Yet another new venture I am involved in is an educational (though still commercial) website, SpiderIdentification.org. It is the brainchild of webmaster Kyle Williams who in the course of building another website on outdoor survival discovered that a great number of people want to know which spiders are potentially dangerous.

Kyle posted a recruitment notice for spider experts on Bugguide.net and I hastily replied, along with another spider expert, Mandy Howe. The two of us have been sharing moderator duties in the Forums section of the website since March. The site now offers an FAQ (frequently asked questions) section and a glossary of terms. An image gallery will follow shortly, along with expanded information on dangerous North American spiders.

One of the more pleasant surprises to come out of this has been the rapid development of a community of spider-lovers who have been eager to share their own images and discoveries while helping solve the “mystery spiders” presented by other folks.

Another reward has been the conversion of many spider-phobic individuals into spider-tolerant people, or even new spider-lovers. Nearly everyone who has posted an image to the “Submit Your Picture” section, even if they have done so in a state of panic, has offered generous compliments to us for the work we are doing.

What is next for SpiderIdentification.org? We need your help to publicize the website as the resource for accurate identifications of spiders, essential information about them, and where empathetic staff understand squeamish and fearful reactions to arachnids and won’t admonish you for those sentiments.

The website currently generates revenue through Google Ads, though we do not explicitly endorse any product or service. Finding additional sources of income is another challenge we face.

I am very grateful to be working with such fine people on this website, for the income it is generating for me, and for the opportunity to continue learning and passing along my knowledge of the arachnid world. Special thanks to Kyle and Mandy for making it such an exciting venture.

DustMites.org

One of the reasons my blog posts were sparse for a few weeks in May was because I was working up articles for the educational website DustMites.org. Yes, I was financially compensated for my research and writing services. Yes, the website is tied to another website for a manufacturer of dust mite mattress covers and related products. I am not promoting the products here. What I do hope is that my blog followers will point out any inaccuracies in the text, and/or give me a nudge if they hear of any new research or information pertinent to updating DustMites.org.

This project, likely to be an ongoing exercise, was quite challenging. Our collective knowledge of dust mites and their allergens is in relative infancy. One of the two most abundant and important species was only named and described in 1961. We still don’t fully understand the properties of some of the allergens, or how they act on our immune system.

There is also conflicting opinion as to the best way to alleviate asthma symptoms that are aggravated chiefly by dust mite allergens. According to one person who contacted me, rhinitis (upper respiratory system inflammation) symptoms are substantially relieved by dust mite covers on mattresses and box springs, but asthma (lower respiratory system inflammation) symptoms often persist.

A personal note: This kind of work, helping people through the dissemination of scientific information, is what I most enjoy doing. I welcome more projects like this in the future, be they related to entomology or natural history in general. Thanks for your patience during those times I am thus engaged and not as prolific in my blogging.

Meet Mary Jane

I owe a big thank you to my friend Joshua Stuart Rose for suggesting that I become friends with Mary Jane Epps via Facebook. Mary Jane (“MJ”) is currently a PhD student here at the University of Arizona. She came to know Josh when they were undergrads in biology at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. She is a wonderful young lady with many talents and an endless fascination for the natural world.

I got to meet her in person last week when we made a spontaneous half-day journey up the Mount Lemmon Highway in the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson. She was due to leave in two days for her “field season” in southwest Virginia and wanted to make a quick getaway here before she left. I was honored to join her.

MJ grew up in Virginia with a brother, sister, and parents who both teach at the University of Virginia. She decided to attend Duke in part to avoid student-teacher conflicts with mom and dad, but she also has a great love of the longleaf pine forests of the Carolinas. No matter where she goes, MJ excels in academics. She recharges her batteries by literally “fiddling around.” She is an accomplished musician who jams with friends playing traditional Appalachian music as well as a bit of bluegrass here and there.

There are many qualities I admire in Mary Jane, not the least of which is that she takes initiative in meeting other people. She has a warm smile and friendly personality that is instantly disarming. It is impossible not to feel relaxed and welcome in her presence.

She also uses all of her senses to familiarize herself with the flora and fauna wherever she finds herself. She reawakened my own sense of smell by crushing leaves to help her identify a particular plant and then sharing the scent with me. She literally looks closely at the tiniest of organisms, carrying a magnifying loop and using it liberally, like here in Molino Canyon last Wednesday during our outing together.

Mary Jane is studying the relationship between fungi and beetles (the beetles to be found in mushrooms for example), and is two years into what she expects will be at least a four year doctoral thesis project. She told me she dissected over 1,500 tiny rove beetles (family Staphylinidae) to identify them to species by differences in their genitalia. I told her I would have just handed her the degree already. That is the kind of dedication she applies to her passions. I can only imagine what her musical talents must be like.

I’m already looking forward to spending more time afield with MJ when she returns here in the fall. Meanwhile, I wish her well with her studies.

Meet Margarethe Brummermann

If there is one person in Tucson who has single-handedly made my life here a true joy, then it is Dr. Margarethe Brummermann. We met through that wonderful social network known as BugGuide, when she began posting insect images to that site. There is much more to Margarethe than just insects, though, and I have enjoyed learning about her former adventures while sharing in some of her new ones.

Margarethe actually lives just outside of Tucson, west and north of the city in Picture Rocks, on the other side of the Tucson Mountains. She lives in a very nice home with her husband, Randy, and a “pack” of five dogs: Montana (“Tana”), Cody, Leika, Frodo, and Bilbo (plus two cats, Boris and Natasha, named of course for the villainous duo in Rocky and Bullwinkle).

They have neighbors, but houses here are widely scattered by city standards, and there is lots of space around their residence. Plus, they are adjacent to state rangelands where cattle graze, coyotes roam, and rattlesnakes are common. It is an austere but scenic landscape, save for a vast mountain of rubble from the nearby quarry.

Indoors, Margarethe’s passions are evident in every room in the house. While she has degrees in zoology and vertebrate physiology, she is also an accomplished and popular artist. Working mostly in watercolor, she paints everything from pets to western life and landscapes. She erects a booth in several outdoor art shows and festivals each year, and her work also hangs in local galleries. She has also done commissioned work.

The last couple of years, Margarethe has created a new project for herself: documenting in digital images the many colorful and unique beetles of Arizona. She shoots images in the field, but also brings specimens home to photograph on a clean white background to bring out the finer details and truer colors of her subjects. Her intention is to publish a “coffee table book” with plates of her images and a brief explanatory text. She has already had interest from publishers; and her latest count is over 800 species of Coleoptera she has imaged.

German by birth, Margarethe has traveled the world and done field research on a wide array of animals. Her stories are vivid and entertaining, as well as educational, and she shares them freely when we take day trips together out of town. She is not above poking fun at me, too, but she’s endlessly patient with my quirks and tolerant and forgiving of my sometimes irresponsibly slower pace in the field.

One of the many joys we have is introducing each other to other entomologists, insect enthusiasts, and wildlife photographers here in Arizona. We often go together to gatherings like the annual “Beetle Bash” hosted by Fred and Carol Skillman at their home in the Dragoon Mountains; and Pat Sullivan and Lisa Lee in Sierra Vista who have recently started holding an annual “Infestation” of entomologists at their own residence.

I can honestly say that my life would be a great deal poorer for not knowing Margarethe and Randy, and certainly a lot duller without our regular excursions away from the city and into the lovely canyons and mountains. Scenic landscapes, incredible fauna and flora, and great company: Who could ask for more? Thank you, Margarethe!

NOTE: You will want to follow Margarethe’s adventures, observations, and passions for yourself at her new blog, Arizona: Beetles, Bugs, Birds and More.