March 23, 2012

Google Logo Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm

Spiders in Borneo: A Vertical Life

By Wayne Maddison

Join Our Community of Science Lovers!

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

A whole host of jumping spiders spend their days crawling up and down tree trunks. The ones that live many meters above the ground are hard to get, but the ones that get down to eye level are pretty easy to find.

Often you can find the tree-trunk dwellers just by looking, but because many are colored just like tree bark, it helps to tap the trunk with a stick to provoke them to move and show themselves. When none is seen, or if you are impatient, there's another method: brushing the trunk with a brush, while a beating sheet is held underneath to catch those dislodged. Here's Edy in action:

I think you can see that beating sheets are used for more than just beating (see my post on "Beating around the bushes"). They also serve as umbrellas and picnic blankets.

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

Brushing a tree trunk yesterday, Edy found the most surprising spider of the trip, an adult female that's tiny -- about 1.6 mm long. She has a narrow body and strangely placed eyes (the spider, that is). We didn't even know what subfamily she belonged to, so we called her "Gray Pixie". Today, we found males. Males are easier to identify because their palpi, which they use to transfer sperm, often have traits characteristic for a large group of species, even if their bodies have evolved to take on diverse forms. The palpi indicate that these are probably a very strange species of Laufeia, which normally have much larger bodies:

Previously in this series:

Spiders in Borneo: Introduction

Spiders in Borneo: Undiscovered biodiversity

Spiders in Borneo: The guests of honor: Salticidae

Spiders in Borneo: Team Salticid

Spiders in Borneo: Mulu National Park

Spiders in Borneo: Dreaming about salticid spiders

Spiders in Borneo: Jumping spiders in the forest

Spiders in Borneo: Beating around the bushes

Spiders in Borneo: Spiders in leaf litter

Text and images © W. Maddison, under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license (CC-BY)

Wayne Maddison is a biologist who studies the diversity and evolution of jumping spiders. When he was thirteen years old in Canada, a big jumping spider looked up at him with her big dark eyes, and he's been hooked ever since. Jumping spiders hunt like cats, creeping and pouncing, and the males perform amazing dances to females. His fascination with the many species of jumping spiders led to an interest in their evolutionary relationships, and then to methods for analyzing evolutionary history. He received a PhD from Harvard University. He is now a Professor at the University of British Columbia, and the Scientific Director of the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. He has taken it as his mission to travel to poorly known rainforests to document the many still-unknown species before they are gone, and to study them and preserve them in museums for future generations.

More by Wayne Maddison

Subscribe to Support Independent Journalism

Great science journalism requires human expertise, time, effort and creativity. And it costs money. That’s why I and the journalists here at Scientific American hope you’ll join our community.

When you subscribe, you are supporting staff and freelance journalists who are passionate about telling science stories that are true, important and compelling. Our editors and reporters are often experts in their fields, which means they understand the nuances of big discoveries and can untangle the breakthroughs from the hype. With a subscription, you are also supporting rigorous fact-checking to ensure the words we publish are precise and accurate. And you’re supporting original illustrations, graphics and photos that bring you closer to an advanced laboratory, an ice sheet in Antarctica or a space mission in orbit. You’re helping us craft other types of high-quality journalism as well: Our newsletters are carefully written, edited and curated by staffers you have or will come to know and love. Our Science Quickly podcast is based on original reporting, collaboration with editors and scientists and exacting production.

Subscriptions keep this engine running so we can continue to deliver thoughtful, rigorous and independent science journalism to you. In an era of viral misinformation, this work is crucial. If you value what we do, I hope you’ll consider joining us as a subscriber

Thank you,

Jeanna Bryner, Editor in Chief, Scientific American

Subscribe