April 9, 2012

Spiders in Borneo: Lambir Hills

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

We were at Lambir Hills National Park for the last week, without Internet connectivity -- hence the blog going dark. In past decades, doing field work in tropical rainforests always meant being entirely disconnected from the rest of the world. We would reemerge not knowing whether Canada had sunk into the sea.

With fond recollection of those old days, I enjoyed this week's peaceful isolation. We did appreciate, however, Lambir's modern perks of electricity, air conditioning, and indoor plumbing.

At Lambir we found many of the same species as we had at Mulu, but some, like these delicate Orthrus, we hadn't seen before. The female is translucent green, making her almost invisible on the undersides of palm fronds in the forest, where they live. The male is bigger (this is rare in spiders) and sports a striking black head and first pair of legs.

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Now that I'm Internet-reconnected, I'll have more posts over the next several days.

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