seasd
Southeast Asia Spider
Documentation
Araneus mitificus, male.
why spiders?
In 2019, I was volunteering with my dad who is a marine conservationist. We traveled to various places in Southeast Asia.
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During the travels, I realised I was more of a land-dweller than a sea-faring boat building oceanographer like my dad was.
I've always been fascinated by arachnids and taxonomy.
When we went to the Mergui Archipelago (Myanmar), I had to stay there for several months with more than ample time to lose my sanity. So, I started cataloguing and identifying spiders I found.
Nilus sp., female. She carried an egg sac and was an apex predator in her microhabitat. Her species can consume small fish.
I kept the information I found on a FB Page called SEA.SD (Southeast Asia Spider Documentation), which still exists.
There, I posted continuously on the various information I found, as well as posted my scientific illustrations of these spiders.
Opademeta fastigata, female. This beauty was found at 4 am in the morning while I was strolling through the tracks of the jungle. Fun times.
The benefits of being stuck on an island for several months was that you were able to observe the life cycle of certain spiders.
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On the left is a fecenia protensa, juvenile. Their life cycle begins and ends in roughly two months, with juveniles first creating their own little cone of silk to reside in. Grown adults would create a refuge from dried leaves to nest and brood.
I could spend hours talking and writing about the little personal discoveries I made on the small little island in the Mergui Archipelago.
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If I'm able to in the future, I might detail more stories on spiders in my blog and share the various shenanigans that happened on the island of Kyun Pila.