This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
Returning from the Borneo expedition, I can look forward to months of sifting through specimens, taking data from them, and analyzing. We will be focused on what the specimens can tell us scientifically, but as we are doing this, each specimen will be a souvenir. We will see the label and be transported back to that trail, to that day.
Even though I'm back in Canada, I have a few more blog posts in me, remembering the spiders and the trip. The first of these: a rainbow. You can find any color you want among the jumping spiders, and here, color by color, is a Bornean jumping spider rainbow.
I am frequently breathless at the beauty of salticids, even after all these years. Each species I see for the first time is a jewel.
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Previously in this series:
Spiders in Borneo: Introduction
Spiders in Borneo: Undiscovered biodiversity
Spiders in Borneo: The guests of honor: Salticidae
Spiders in Borneo: Team Salticid
Spiders in Borneo: Mulu National Park
Spiders in Borneo: Dreaming about salticid spiders
Spiders in Borneo: Jumping spiders in the forest
Spiders in Borneo: Beating around the bushes
Spiders in Borneo: Spiders in leaf litter
Spiders in Borneo: A Vertical Life
Spiders in Borneo: Leeches and eyeballs
Spiders in Borneo: Breaking News!
Spiders in Borneo: Falling from above
Spiders in Borneo: What I carry
Spiders in Borneo: Entangled and pierced
Spiders in Borneo: Scattered literature
Spiders in Borneo: Mulu wrap-up
Spiders in Borneo: Lambir Hills
Spiders in Borneo: Replaying the Tape of Life
Spiders in Borneo: More Hispo at Lambir
Spiders in Borneo: Geometrical Jumping spiders
Spiders in Borneo: Trees that grow from sky to ground
Spiders in Borneo: The spiders who wouldn’t be
Spiders in Borneo: The Music of Biodiversity
Text and images © W. Maddison, under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license (CC-BY)