L. Brian Patrick

Where's the picture?

Tonight and for an eternity to come we grieve. She was an amazing companion and family member. She is dearly missed.

Lateral view of a small dwarf spider, Walckenaeria subpallida, from Virginia.

The periscope-like head of Walckenaeria subpallida (Araneae, Linyphiidae) from Virginia, USA. #InverteFest

This ..

Herbivory in Spiders: The Importance of Pollen for Orb-Weavers Orb-weaving spiders (Araneidae) are commonly regarded as generalist insect predators but resources provided by plants such as pollen may be an important dietary supplementation. Their webs snare insec...

People don’t realize spiders can supplement their diet with pollen. Eggs and Sanders (2013) found juvenile orb-weavers get up to 38 percent from it. Meadows matter. Flowers are tiny gas pumps for murder machines. #science #arachnology🧪
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Setbacks... fixable, but still setbacks...

round opening of a spider burrow, about the size of a US nickel, with a silken hinge on the top edge, attached to a silken lid (a trapdoor).

found a trapdoor spider burrow in the desert yesterday

the spider constructs this door from silk & soil & "saliva"

bonus liverwort in the LL

Cover of "Checklist of the Flies (Diptera) in Canada" featuring two fly images, with contributors and publisher details below.

New book: A checklist to identify all known species of flies in Canada! doi.org/10.3897/ab.e...

"This checklist is a fundamental piece of work that will guide the assessment of the conservation status of those species."

@bioinfocus.bsky.social

Oof...

NCBI is down. Ordinarily, I wouldn't worry, but with the way things are going here in the US I worry that this is more than just a temporary glitch or system update...

Just following the examples of my heroes, including you!

Just messaged you!

I got back reads today! 92 samples with reads across 16 genera and 40 species!

My first task: check for a mitogenome in Minicosa neptuna.

Got one! 😀 That will be worked out in the next week or two for sure and I hope to get that manuscript ready to be submitted by the end of March!

Just talked to the sequencing facility and it sounds like my first round of lycosids are working out pretty well, including my new favorite spider Minicosa neptuna! I should have data tomorrow to start getting mitogenomes and to use in the phyluce pipeline to extract UCEs!

Messaged

Hello! Do you know which species of Hogna you get there? I would also be interested in Trochosa (I assume terricola?).

I sent you a message! 😀

@kaina-privet.bsky.social to be clear, this is general ngs. I hope to extract mitogenomes and ultraconserved elements (UCEs) from the assembled contigs.

Tobias emailed me. Please contact him and he will help you send specimens to me if you collect any wolf spiders, including Trochosa. 😁 Ah, yes, Kronestedt is a good idea. I will email him. Thank you!

Salut Julien! Oui, bien sur! Specimens from southern France would be great. Do you have any Hogna sp.? I assume "radiata" at least?

I'm happy to share any data (reads) that result from specimens you provide. 😁

I'll be doing next gen sequencing (whole genome sequencing, random) for 150 bp paired-end reads, with targets of 15M to 20M reads per specimen.

It is okay if nobody specializes in arachnids. The name of the collections manager is enough to start. 😁 I found his email address and will send him an email in a few minutes.

T. terricola from Sweden would be brilliant! I am unsure who is curator at the Swedish NHM, but if you give me their name I can contact them. Additionally, if you do collect T. terricola, I have a specific interest in that species! We can arrange for the specimens to be sent through the museum.

Well, this study is more about teasing apart mitochondrial vs nuclear genomic evolution in wolf spiders than confirming they're spiders.

That's understandable. I appreciate you reaching out.😁

Basically, ANY specimen from which I get DNA needs to be deposited in a museum for this reason.

But I also need to voucher each specimen by depositing in a recognized museum collection, so they need to be dead for that. That way, the specimen can be examined by anyone else in case the species ID is ever in question.

Well, yeah, dead is best. It's difficult to get DNA from living specimens.

Where are you collecting?