The Fiddly Business of Tracking Australia s Most Venomous Spider
The Fiddly Business of Tracking Australia’s Most Venomous Spider
To study the Sydney funnel web spider, one researcher tags along from a distance with the help of tags the size of a grain of rice.
The Fiddly Business of Tracking Australia s Most Venomous Spider
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Tracking the small spiders involves quick, careful work. Courtesy Caitlin Creak
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After about four or five minutes of breathing carbon dioxide gas, Caitlin Creak’s eight-legged subject is fully unconscious. Working quickly she has less than a minute before the spider, named Harold, starts to wake up Creak pins the creature’s legs under a foam doughnut, leaving the shiny black body exposed. Using an especially strong super glue, she attaches a tracking device, barely larger than a grain of rice, to his back. The next day, she’ll release Harold near where she found him on the outskirts of Sydney, Australia, and study his movemen