gretabinford.bsky.social
@gretabinford.bsky.social
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🚨Good news, everyone!
1) I'm thrilled to be joining the behavior powerhouse that is Indiana University!! So stoked, starting Jan 2026.
2) I'm recruiting grad students! Are you (or your trainee) interested in sensory ecology? behavior? evolution? fieldwork? spiders? Drop me a line Jstafstr(at)iu.edu
November 22, 2025 at 4:53 PM
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Blind cave spiders~

This occurs due to the process of regressive evolution. In an environment without light, vision provides no advantage in finding prey or avoiding predators. The loss of their eyes means that energy and resources once used for eyes are instead allocated to other traits.
November 23, 2025 at 2:36 PM
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🕷️ Meet Rodrigo Monjaraz Ruedas (Assistant Curator, Entomology). Area of expertise? Arachnids.

Be sure to drop in to our seasonal #SpiderPavilion to see some of our favorite living specimens up close now through November 30!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSIC...
Spider Scientist Breaks Down Why Spiders are Amazing
YouTube video by Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM)
www.youtube.com
November 18, 2025 at 7:04 PM
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Tarantula foot-pad. Who knew they could be so pretty?
November 1, 2025 at 3:22 PM
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Mesquite 4.02 update released! It fixes a few bugs and adds Codon Alignment and various other improvements. Also, much faster with genomics files with 1000s of loci. www.mesquiteproject.org 🧪 #evolbio
@bembidion.bsky.social
October 25, 2025 at 12:37 AM
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How fortunate am I, that not 100ft from my back door this wonder of evolution decided to post up. She—a bolas spider, Mastophora stowei—spent her nights luring in moths from the low branches of a sassafras tree in our yard. Luckily she picked ideal spot to capture her with a bolas at the ready
October 12, 2025 at 4:24 AM
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Thrilled our paper is finally out! A great collaboration between @mcaterino.bsky.social, Ernesto Recuero, and myself. We looked at endemism in spiders in southern Appalachia (largely NC).

This is also likely the most species-rich phylogeny (although just COI-based) of linyphiids yet published!
High elevation litter spiders of southern Appalachia show less local endemism than other arthropods - ballooning by spiderlings apparently overcomes geographic isolation. A great collaboration with @forthespiders.bsky.social & Ernesto Recuero

doi.org/10.1636/JoA-... (if paywalled write me for pdf)
September 30, 2025 at 3:22 PM
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New research from @moore-evo-eco.bsky.social & P. Cushing in #RESInsectConsDiv

High & hardy: Cold-tolerant #generalists inhabit extreme elevations in Rocky Mountain #Pardosa #spiders
doi.org/10.1111/icad.70011

@manusaunders.bsky.social @wiley.com

Photo: Rocky Mountains, Colorado (credit M.Moore)
August 26, 2025 at 3:15 PM
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new paper, led by Lin Yan from the Elias Lab at UCB

Latent preference for red ornamentation drives interspecific mating in nascent jumping spider species (Habronattus americanus group, F. Salticidae)
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
August 23, 2025 at 2:59 PM
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Want to read the article itself? Find it here!

Phylogeny of euophryine jumping spiders from ultra-conserved elements, with evidence on the intersexual coevolution of genitalia (Araneae: Salticidae: Euophryini)
buff.ly/vZL9W63
July 17, 2025 at 8:20 AM