Bring out your dead

[Ray Gabriel]

Richard, Stuart and I will have a jar of alcohol at Kempton for any dead spiders and scorpions that people may wish to donate to us/Stuarts DNA research/the Museum at Oxford.

Well I say Richard Stuart and I but it is only I as the other two will will not be coming to the show.

If all goes well I will be on the spider shop stall if not I will be dossing around the BTS table so specimens can be left for us there.

Cheers

Ray

[James Box]

that's good news, Ray...i've got a few in the freezer for you then. will bring!

[stuart longhorn]

Hi james, (and others)

Yes, Ray will be going to kempton when its a good opportunity to get him specimens... but would you please write on here what you might bring?

(Just as its better to take DNA samples from fresh frozen than have them sitting in a jar of 70% for a few weeks//months until i get to process them - i would rather valuable spp for DNA to stay frozen..or at least a leg, until i can actually sort them myself).

Thanks to everyone who has been keeping deads for us !!! (else, BTS lecture, or BTS show next year is another chance to pass deads onto us)

[Iain L]

does size matter

The eternal question - is size important!
Do specimens have to be adult or are s/a even slings of any use?

[stuart longhorn]

Exactly what i keep telling myself, size doesnt mater !!!

No worries - any sized/age specimens welcome, but the smaller ones are generally not really too useful for evaluating the morphology for species identification.

Best specimens are adult males and females, but all potentially useful and nothing will be refused!

Any size is good for DNA though (provided fresh dead/well kept), and despite reservations above spiderlings and juveniles can help us understand how body structures of spiders change through age. But as you probably know, spiderlings of diverse species can look pretty much alike, well, its the same with specific morphology, but they still might be useful !!

[Peter Lacey]

Hi Stuart
I should have a female G. mollicoma, Southern which unfortunately didnt make it past the moult - fangs were still red before she died. Rather annoying as it had been mated back in March and died about a week ago.