Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia)
Spiders - love them or leave them but at least learn to respect these top predators of the world of creepy crawlies.
An arachnologist by the name of William S. Bristowe once estimated that a one-acre field could be home to over two and a quarter million individual spiders. Spiders eat 400 – 800 million tons of insects a year and are thus a fine natural control of insect populations. Learn just how dangerous the infamous black widow can be, find out why the brown recluse is not a concern here in the west, and impress your friends and influence people with all your newly gained knowledge about these fascinating creatures. Get answers to all those pesky spider questions that have been plaguing you for years.
In-Person Gathering - BCAS welcomes everyone back to in-person programs! Doors open at 7 PM for socializing and the program begins at 7:15. For in-person programs, we will follow CDC, State of Colorado, and Boulder County Public Health guidance on the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as policies of the Church that hosts our programs.
At this time, all persons who enter the UU Church building are required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. To keep our community healthy, we also ask that everyone who attends in person wear a high-quality mask over your mouth and nose; stay home if you have symptoms, a known exposure to COVID-19, or a positive test result; and confirm a negative result on a rapid antigen test prior to attending, if you have recently tested positive or had symptoms.
Online Gathering - The meeting room will open at 7:10, the program starts at 7:15. Questions for the speaker will be taken from the chat feature of the Zoom call.
Dr. Paula Cushing with tarantula. Image courtesy of Dr. Paula Cushing, Denver Museum of Nature and Science
Dr. Paula Cushing is the Senior Curator of Invertebrate Zoology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. She began her position in 1998. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Florida in 1995. Her research focuses on the diversity of spiders in the Rocky Mountain/Great Plains ecoregion (the Colorado Spider Survey). She is also involved with projects exploring the taxonomy, systematics, biogeography, and natural history of spiders, scorpions, and solifuges. She has published on myrmecophilic spiders and their evolutionary relationship with the ant hosts. Her current research focus is on arachnids in the order Solifugae. She and her students are exploring the systematics, taxonomy, morphology, and behavior of camel spiders in the North American family Eremobatidae.
Image courtesy of Dr. Paula Cushing, Denver Museum of Nature and Science