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The Star Latest Christchurch news at www. .kiwi<br />
Thursday March 9 2017 23<br />
busts the myths about arachnids<br />
Trapdoor spiders are an interesting<br />
one to catch, because they<br />
like to stay inside their burrow<br />
behind the trapdoor. So to catch<br />
them, one researcher – Vikki<br />
Smith – invented a technique<br />
they call “beetling”, where they<br />
tie a leash around a beetle and<br />
walk it up and down outside the<br />
trap to lure the spider out. When<br />
the spider comes out to catch the<br />
beetle they block the door so it<br />
can’t get back in<br />
I wouldn’t like to be the<br />
beetle.<br />
No, but the beetle usually<br />
survives it. Vikki had one beetle<br />
she called Pete, who she kept for<br />
a long time, although I believe he<br />
recently died.<br />
RIP Pete. And when you’re<br />
working in the lab, what kind<br />
of discoveries do you find most<br />
interesting?<br />
I think the most exciting thing<br />
is just to look down a microscope<br />
and realise you’re looking at a<br />
unique species that has never<br />
been seen before.<br />
Have you been able to name<br />
any new species?<br />
Yes, about 30. There are rules<br />
about what you can name them<br />
– they can be about where it is<br />
found or what it looks like, or the<br />
MYTH: Cor Vink said many people believed white tail spider<br />
bites could be deadly, but that was a myth.<br />
people who found them.<br />
Have you given any particularly<br />
interesting names?<br />
Not myself, although there<br />
are some interesting names for<br />
spiders in New Zealand. There<br />
is a genus of tiny spider called<br />
beelzebub, named for the Jewish<br />
‘lord of the flies’. But you can do<br />
some damage if you choose the<br />
wrong name. There is a kind of<br />
cave beetle, which was discovered<br />
by a Nazi supporter, and he<br />
named it hitleri, after Hitler. It is<br />
nothing special, but because of<br />
the name, it is now endangered,<br />
because a lot of crazy neo-Nazis<br />
want it in their collections, so<br />
they hunt them down.<br />
Obviously spiders aren’t popular<br />
with everyone – does that<br />
make it hard to get research or<br />
conservation funding?<br />
Well, they’re not pretty, fluffy<br />
birds, that’s for sure. I don’t need<br />
much research funding because<br />
most of my work is collectionbased.<br />
I have done things like<br />
molecular research, but not a lot<br />
of it, so funding isn’t something<br />
that keeps me up at night.<br />
Are there any spiders that<br />
scare you?<br />
Not really, because I know<br />
they’re not going to go after<br />
you. Some, like the white tails,<br />
are quite creepy and they have<br />
a painful bite. But I’ve worked<br />
with spiders for more than 20<br />
years, and I’ve never been bitten.<br />
What do your children think<br />
of your work?<br />
They’re fine with it. They’re<br />
12 and 10, and they know the<br />
names of a lot of species and<br />
they’re quite good at finding<br />
them, too. They’ve come on<br />
several trips with me, helping me<br />
collect them.<br />
There are a lot of myths<br />
people believe about spiders<br />
– which do you run into most<br />
often?<br />
One of the most common is<br />
that white tail venom is deadly.<br />
It’s not deadly. People will show<br />
you dramatic wounds which,<br />
they say, came from a white tail<br />
bite, but often they didn’t see it<br />
happen. It’s likely just a secondary<br />
infection, which is more likely<br />
to have come from a mosquito<br />
than a white tail. The other one<br />
is that cellar spiders, which most<br />
people call daddy-long-legs, have<br />
highly potent venom. The reality<br />
is, it’s not potent at all. You<br />
would need about 50 bites on a<br />
mouse to kill it. And there’s the<br />
myth about swallowing spiders<br />
in your sleep. It’s true they like<br />
dark places, but not somewhere<br />
wet like your mouth. So I don’t<br />
know where that came from.<br />
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