E24: Huntsman spiders from Madagascar,David Bowie, and collecting spiders the size of dinner plates!

Written By Livia Miller

Dr. Peter Jaeger is the Head of Arachnology at the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Frankfurt, Germany. He talks to me about his paper published in the June 10 issue of the Zootaxa in which he describes two new genera and two new species of huntsman spiders!

We discuss the large amount of size variation in these spiders, a species named after David Bowie, a specimen collected about the time he was born, the fun of collecting in the jingles of southeast Asia, and why we need to keep looking for new species!

The title of the paper is “Two new enigmatic genera of huntsman spiders from Madagascar (Araneae: Sparassidae).” The paper is currently Open Access and available here: https://www.mapress.com/zt/article/view/zootaxa.4984.1.24

To learn more about Dr. Peter Jaeger, visit his website: https://www.senckenberg.de/en/institutes/senckenberg-research-institute-natural-history-museum-frankfurt/division-terrestrial-zoology/section-arachnology/arachnology_team/

Livia Miller

Collaboration-minded freelance web designer with experience in information architecture and communications production.

https://krohnmiller.info
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E25: Four new species of armored scale insects, and working on groups of organisms on which few others want to work
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E23: Reefs built by a new species of oyster, instead of being built by corals!