Joined: Nov 11, 2022 Last Active: Mar 22, 2023 iNaturalist
Profile photo: a sketch of me (wearing glasses, though a little bit hard to see) as a bumblebee jumper (Pystira ephippigera), my favorite jumping spider (salticid) species, reading a book on palpimanoids (maybe a future book I'll write?!, lol). The photos in the book show a species of Ikuma, based on the observations of Ruan Booysen (@razorspider) and Rudolph Steenkamp (@hrodulf). Despite what my photo shows, my favorite spider is actually the New Zealand endemic Hutton's palp-footed spider (Huttonia palpimanoides).
Hello! I am a homeschooling Christian from Dayton, Ohio, with an oversized obsession for spiders as well as any other organism, though, spiders are my area of expertise and have been my favorite organisms ever since I first heard of them. Some of my favorite non-spider organisms are centipedes (Chilopoda), harvestmen and other arachnids (Opiliones and other Arachnida), snakes (Serpentes), anteaters (Vermilingua), and rhinoceroses (Rhinocerotidae). I am bewildered by Creation, so aside from the identifications I make, I love to observe God's amazing creatures. especially spiders! Because I have so many spider stats and facts I really want to share with others, I am currently writing a new comprehensive overview of the 132 current spider families, as well as information on many previous and future families. Some of these facts include facts such as that jumping spiders can actually sleep! Others include those such as that bright lungless spiders probably have no related spider families and are probably not even araneomorphs! My book, non-profit, will be sold on blurb.com as A Field Guide to Spider Families of the World for about $32 (base price). The book includes characters for distinguishing families as well as characters found in every family. Listing all 4,300 spider genera, many spider genera will be illustrated will stunningly beautiful photographs from my kind contributors. My many thanks go out to them! The photographs, as well as the few illustrations, include faces, egg sacs, courtship behaviors, and more. Each family will be presented will a table of characters such as pronunciations, etymologies, taxonomic affinities, other names, body articles, lifestyles, and more. All genera in each family, as mentioned previously, will be listed, and many will be illustrated to give the reader an overall picture of the family. The taxonomic affinities are further provided in the information on each family as well as biology of many genera when known. If you don't have any prior experience in spider terminology (i.e., you aren't familiar with the many, many body parts), my book will have an easy-to-understand introduction to these terms, but you must memorize and recognize them otherwise my book may not be of any use to you. If you are ever reading anything I write and it just doesn't make much sense, feel free to message me via private message and I will happily explain!
If wished to be informed in the time of the publishing, one must follow me or, better yet, join the Spiders of Earth project. Both ways, I will post journals on the updates of my book.
Feel free to use my photos for anything! It would be very cool if you could send me a quick message first explaining why you are using it and/or where I can view it when it is finished! I'm also on Flickr under the same username, but there I won't post as many photos.
Current stats:
*About/over
Note: sometimes are the Caponiidae placed in their very own suborder/infraorder known as the Epulmonae; also note that the stats above do not include captive individuals
Current goals:
Future goals:
Completed goals:
What I use for macro photography at the moment (unfortunately!)
Projects I focus on most:
https://www.inaturalist.org/comments?utf8=%E2%9C%93&utf8=%E2%9C%93&mine=true&q=&commit=Search&q=&commit=Search
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/map?ident_user_id=huttonia#2/17.688/31.923
https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications?page=9&taxon_id=367189&user_id=huttonia
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?ident_user_id=huttonia&place_id=any&subview=map
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=31&subview=map&taxon_id=47118&unobserved_by_user_id=huttonia&verifiable=any&view=species
My absolute favorite observations:
Chevroned Huttonia cf. palpimanoides
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/147071653
Super camo Arctosa littoralis
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/139423750
Super fluffy huntsman Megaloremmius leo
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/36527066
Undescribed Brazilian wandering spider-like huntsman Heteropoda "phoneutrioides"
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/38722066
Undescribed fiery red-orange huntsman Heteropoda "thraca"
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/38793689
Odd-jawed jumper Tylogonus parabolicus
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/129683900
Focused eyes of a fisher Dolomedes tenebrosus
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/149374656
Somewhat chunky scorpion Opistophthalmus carinatus
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/149121661
Beetle infested palpimanid party Palpimanus gibbulus
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/146641197
Two different spiders coexisting Palpimanus gibbulus
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/146297565
and
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/145688559
Waterhead palpimanid Palpimanus gibbulus
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/145366624
Palpimanid left out of the party Palpimanus gibbulus
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/144997754
Recommended websites:
Recommended books (still under construction):