I wouldn’t exactly consider myself
an arachnophobe, but I definitely would not say that I am a fan of spiders. So
you could imagine myreaction when I found out that the faculty led research project
I would be working on involved golf ball-sized spiders. Our professor was Jenny
Stynoski, a scientist who has been studying poison frog research, investigating
the defense mechanisms of the Strawberry Poison Frog (Oophaga pumilio). Our project looked at colored-based learning and
prey selection of wandering spiders in the Cupiennius
genus of the Ctenidae family. These spiders have been shown to avoid aposematic
prey like the Dendrobatid dart frog Oophaga
pumilio so we were trying to determine whether these spiders would learn to
avoid unpalatable prey under aposematic visual cues – in this case, a red
flashing light.
On the night before our project,
our professor gave us an introductory lecture explaining the scope and methods
of our experiment. Jenny assured us that these spiders would be easy to find
and catch and that it was okay if we weren’t completely comfortable with catching
them yet. Although it was somewhat comforting to know that Jenny was also very
afraid of spiders, the thought of going out at night hunting these spiders
terrified me. “You’ll just have to wrap the Zip-lock bag around the leaf of the
bromeliad and, when a spider enters the bag, zip it up tight”, Jenny told us. Easier
said than done.
On the
first night of our spider collections, it poured rain. These evening showers
were not a new sighting, but we were all still surprised by the sheer amount of
rain that was falling that night. Our goal for the night was to catch 20
spiders. The garden at the Las Cruces Biological Station is covered in
terrestrial bromeliads, so catching 20 spiders that night seemed like a
feasible goal. The four of us split into two groups and covered different areas
of the garden. The first 20 minutes of our collection were unsuccessful. The spiders
seemed to be just as irritated by the rain as we were. Our clothes were
drenched and glued to our bodies. My ankles were soaked in a layer of water
that lined the inside of my rain boots.
Despite the
unideal working conditions, we continued to search for these spiders around the
station’s garden. Little by little, our search efforts paid off. We found
spiders hiding underneath the leaves of the bromeliads, trying to avoid the
rain. Every time a spider was spotted, we would surround the bromeliad plant and
plan out our scheme of attack. As one person gently wrapped the bag around the
bromeliad leaves, the other would use the end of a ruler or a scissor to try to
guide the spider into the bag. The job was not very easy. These spiders are
extremely sensitive to vibrations so any kind of disturbance would scare them
right off of the leaves. A lot of the times the spiders would also outsmart us
and jump into the puddles of water found in between the leaves of the
bromeliads. Once they were in those small openings at the base of the plants, finding
them was near impossible task.
As the night progressed, the field
work became
more and more fun. We found a group of bromeliads on a hillside by the dining
hall that were covered in spiders. Up until then I had been the one guiding the
spiders into the bags with a ruler. Jenny had warned us that these spiders were
able to bite through the plastic bag and told us about her wild hallucinations
when she got bitten by one, so I definitely was not planning on being a victim
to these spiders’ fangs. However, the more collections I got to be a part of,
the more I got used to them and the more I started to build up my courage.
By 8:30pm, we had caught a total of
15 spiders. Our group had gotten a lot better at spotting and catching them and
had developed a routine that was followed for each collection. With only five
spiders left to catch, I was determined to catch one on my own before the end
of the night. I walked over to the edge of the hill of bromeliads and flashed
my light on what looked like a giant cricket sitting in between two of the bromeliad’s
leaves. My flashlight wasn’t very bright so I called over my partner to try to
help me figure out what it was.
Shocker, it wasn’t a cricket. There
were three large spiders, all sitting on the edge of the bromeliad leaves. I
knew this was my last chance to catch one. I prepared myself for the catch
while my partner tried to find the best angle to approach them. I opened up the
bag and reached over the bromeliad leaf. My hands were shaking. Interestingly,
my shakes helped disorient the spider well enough for me to be able to zip the
bag quickly enough. I screamed through the entire process, but I had finally
caught one on my own.
With these three spiders in hand, we
only a few were left for us to reach our goal. Satisfied with our collections,
we packed up our things and headed back to the house to call it a night.
Although we were all extremely wet and cold from being out in the rain for two
and a half hours, we were thrilled about the fact that we had collected all of
the spiders that we needed for the experiment the following day.
This
project really got me out of my comfort zone and pushed me to face my fear of
spiders. I definitely have not totally gotten over that fear, but I am proud
that I took this opportunity to face it and make progress on it. I even
surprised myself by offering to help the second group catch spiders the following
night! I’m excited to see what other challenges are going to be thrown at me this
semester, and I look forward to getting involved in other creative projects
like this one.
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