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Along to document the trip were a writer and a photographer from the Discovery Channel, which collaborated on the month-long expedition. Along in spirit was Dr. Norm Platnick, Curator of Arachnids at the American Museum of Natural History, who is directing the study of the biodiversity of the ground spiders of Australia funded by the National Science Foundation. Collecting specimens on-site is a key component of any such project.
Following Turn-of-the-Century Footsteps
It’s a huge task, even though a little bit of it had already been tackled. In the early 1900s, scientists had gathered spider specimens from this region, but the collection was incomplete. (For example, a mature specimen was lacking, or only one gender was represented.) The 1998 expedition followed this earlier spider trail, in order to complete the scientific record. Collecting was done in very specific areas, mostly coastal and inland desert sites in Western Australia, for very specific specimens.
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