Chris Buddle and Roar will soon present a happy volume packed with eight-legged greatness.
Each chapter will highlight a common species: a plain language and scientific overview of the biology and natural history of common spider species of North America. That’s a big task, because of the hundreds of potential candidate species, we’ll only highlight a dozen or so of the most common.
We need your help: Many of you provided valuable feedback on your favorite spidey friends, and we have already spoken to loads of Arachnologists, but we want to know what’s on everybody’s minds (spiderly speaking). See our chapter candidates and let us know if we missed a North American species SO INCREDIBLE IT MUST BE INCLUDED!
Here are the species we are proposing as “main chapters”:
Argiope aurantia (garden spider, or writing spider)
Oxyopes salticus (the striped lynx spider)
Neoscona sp. (orb-weavers)
Misumena vatia (goldenrod crab spider)
Dolomedes sp. (fishing or dock spiders)
Salticus scenicus (zebra jumper)
Parasteatoda tepidariorum (American house spider)
Latrodectus sp. (widow spiders)
Pardosa sp. (thin-legged wolf spiders)
Cheiracanthum sp. (ceiling spiders)
Agelenopsis sp. (funnel-web spiders)
Phidippus audax (bold jumping spider)
Frontinella communis (bowl and doily spider)
Sphodros niger (black purse-web spider)
And our candidates for sidebars:
Mastophora sp. (bolus spiders)
Scytodes thoracica (spitting spider)
Walckenaeria sp. (money spiders, or micro-sheet web spiders)
Dysdera crocata (wood-louse hunter)
Loxosceles reclusa (brown recluse)
Tetragnatha sp. (long-jawed orb weavers)
Tibellus oblongus
Peckhamia sp. or Synemosyna (ant-mimicking jumping spiders)
Herpyllus ecclesiasticus (Parson’s spider)
Trochosa terricola (wolf spider)
Gasterachantha cancriformis (spiny-backed orb weaver)
Pholcus phalangioides (cellar spider)
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So… what do you think?
Comment here or email us your thoughts, feelings, or weird spider dreams (only if
you really want to)! Your spidersenses are valuable to us!
Thanks!
Yours in spidery greatness,
Chris and Roar
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Great project! I’d suggest promoting collar spiders to a full page rather than a sidebar. I’ve lived in eleven states and cellar spiders are a constant! They’re highly visible, hanging out in their corners, and a lot of people freak out over them. Win folks over to their side!
How about an ant-mimicking corinnid? And the giants of the salticid world, Phidippus?
I think your list is ACES. You might also consider, in the interest of warming folks up to the “introvert,” get some photos (or crayon drawings) of the HIGHLY variable patters & colors of juv. black widows. They’re pretty freakin’ cool. =)
I second the idea about juvenile widows! And I know someone (Sean McCann) who has some excellent photographs of various colouration!
How about the ever helpful steatoda triangulosa or triangulate cobweb spider?
Also the little grass spiders that make the fairy blankets on grass and bushes
Can’t wait to read the book!
But what about the misunderstood brown recluse? You can’t write a book about spiders and leave it out!
This is a great list! Micrathena and trapdoor spiders hold a special place in my heart.
I would suggest the beautiful Shamrock Spider :)
A Shamrock Spider could be peeking out of a Shamrock Plant :)
On behalf of my 9-year old future entomologist, I submit that trapdoor spiders and happy face spiders are also worthy of consideration (or in his words, they are very exceptional and strange species that we shouldn’t judge by appearance).
How about the tarantula species?? Aphonopelma hentzi? Or Aphonopelma chalcodes?
Bowl and doily spider? I can’t wait to read about that one! What might be the habits of this quaintly named arachnid?
Hogna carolinensis, as it is large, widespread across most of the US, harmless and extremely variable. There is a falsehood taught that color makes a species, and this species ranges from brown to shiny silver.
http://www.spiders.us/species/hogna-carolinensis/
http://bugguide.net/node/view/27062/bgimage
[…] Spider book update: help decide what common species should show up in an upcoming book about North American spiders. […]
Happy to see bold jumping spider on the list. I met one for the first time in my kitchen yesterday morning and was completely charmed.