Dancing peacock spiders turned an arachnophobe into an arachnologist:
Joseph Schubert spends hours at a time lying in the dirt of the Australian outback watching for tiny flickers in the sparse, ground-hugging foliage. The 22-year-old arachnologist is searching for flea-sized peacock spiders, and he admits, he's a little obsessed.
But it wasn't always so. Schubert grew up fearing spiders, with parents who were "absolutely terrified" of the eight-legged crawlers. "I was taught that every single spider in the house was going to kill me, and we should squish it and get rid of it," he says.
Then Schubert stumbled across some photographs of Australia's endemic peacock spiders, a group named for the adult males' vivid coloring and flamboyant dance moves aimed at wooing a mate (SN: 9/9/16; SN: 12/8/15). And he was hooked.
"They raise their third pair of legs and dance around and show off like they are the most amazing animals on the planet, which in my eyes they are." He decided to pursue a career in arachnology. And despite not quite having completed his undergraduate degree in biology, he's begun working part time at Museums Victoria in Melbourne, and has already made a mark.
[...] He still hasn't entirely gotten over his arachnophobia, though he's grateful that peacock spiders, while venomous to their tiny insect prey, are harmless to humans. He's handled hundreds of the spiders and suspects their mouthparts are too small to puncture human skin, even if they wanted to take a bite.
Less charismatic spiders are sometimes still a challenge for Schubert's nerves, though. In the Little Desert last year, while putting a 5-centimeter-long wolf spider into a container, the spider pushed the lid aside and crawled up Schubert's arm. "I screamed," he says, laughing. "But if I can prepare and mentally tell myself that a spider is not looking to hurt me, and even if it does bite me, it's not going to do anything, then I can put myself in the mental position to handle it."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 23 2020, @01:26PM
For a hilarious (though not suitable for work or children due to language) introduction to the dancing peacock spider, see this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxM_cag99nU [youtube.com]
He (zefrank) has a whole bunch of other animal videos on his YouTube channel. Very entertaining and fairly informative, though again, not for work or kids.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 23 2020, @02:47PM
Awwwwwww
(Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday April 23 2020, @03:15PM
This is Australia, it's not just every spider, every thing in that country, from the box jellyfish to the dropbears, is designed to kill you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 23 2020, @06:35PM
Them buggers scare me shitless but I like them since they munch on other nasty critters.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday April 23 2020, @10:46PM
Never heard of a Dancing Peacock Spider, but it sure looks cool.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday April 23 2020, @11:34PM (1 child)
Those things are active hunters. He was lucky it didn't take his arm off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 24 2020, @12:42AM
Nothing of value would have been lost. Would have been good riddance.