March 16, 2012

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Spiders in Borneo: Mulu National Park

By Wayne Maddison

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

We've arrived at our primary field site! In the northeast edge of the Malaysian state of Sarawak lies Gunung Mulu National Park, a mountainous area with wonderful forests. It's a prime destination for ecotourists because of its amazing limestone pinnacles and striking biodiversity. For us, the attraction is spiders.

We need to settle in and get our bearings. Tomorrow, the serious work begins. But, we couldn't help but look for spiders, for just a few moments. Alex found this cute little Neobrettus whose first legs have striking brushes on them. As she walks, her first legs are in constant motion, waving up and down, and this motion is made especially visible by the brushes. Why it might help the spider to make such a fuss with its legs, we don't know:

Previously in this series:

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Spiders in Borneo: Introduction

Spiders in Borneo: Undiscovered biodiversity

Spiders in Borneo: The guests of honor: Salticidae

Spiders in Borneo: Team Salticid

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

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