This Scientist Is Racing Extinction To Discover New Species of Arachnids

Key Takeaways

I think one of the most common reactions that I get when I tell people that I've discovered new species is that are surprised that there are new species left to be discovered that's the male of the new species that's the first male we got no way yeah what we're doing is looking under every Rock every log every debris on the ground so you really have to like put yourself into the shoes of an arachnid and imagine if I was on an arachnid where would I be hiding I'm definitely not in the lab all the time that's really a stereotype that's inaccurate I think the stereotype that I'd like to imagine myself in a little bit more is like Indiana Jones sort of situation exploring the unknown and trying to discover something new I am scared of snakes legit I don't even want to admit that right now I'm really scared of mosquitoes and I'm scared of birds flying out of the bushes away [Music] there's moments when I'm in the field that I don't feel like it's the most glamorous job when I haven't showered and I run out of water and I just want to go home and watch some Netflix hello it's the end of my first day out in the field but I'm already pretty tired hot and sweaty hello it's Lauren just got back from my morning of collecting and it was hot and sweaty as you at the end of the day is something I really love doing and that's everything arachnids are both diurnal and nocturnal and arachnids are often what we call cryptic species which means that they're trying to blend in and so that makes them really hard to see and so we do have a number of tools that we also bring along with us when we go out into the field one of those is a leaf litter sifter will you shake all the leaves around and at the bottom is a funnel that collects all of the little leaf particles and lots of insects and arachnids and even some other weird things like amphipods which are kind of crustacean we also bring a vegetation beater or a beat sheet which is kind of like a white kites that you hold under vegetation as you knock against a stick or something against the vegetation and and spiders and insects like rain down sometimes anserine down into your shirts too which is not the most fun then you use a pooter which is like a mouth vacuum to suck all the insects and arachnids up and collect them into a vial I want to get like a logo screen-printed on my fanny pack that says just poot it would be good right as soon as you get back to the base camp and start looking at what you've collected you may notice that you've collected all the same few species which is a sign of a disturbed forest or you've collected a lot of different species which is a sign of a healthy horse this is some of the stuff that we collected over the last two weeks it might not look like a ton but in each of those little baggies there's anywhere from two to a few hundred or maybe even a couple thousand specimens once night completely falls we'll take out our ultraviolet lamps and start looking for scorpions will work till one o'clock in the morning or so and then try to get some sleep you know I think that my research stems from a need that I have as an individual to understand the biodiversity of the world somewhere between 30 and 50 percent of the arachnid species on earth are only known to science what I've made sort of my personal life's mission is to try to document the remaining 50 percent and what that requires is a lot of like on-the-ground hard work and also back in the lab work in the microscope and in the genetics lab this one is a new species it's like the whip cream on top of the ice cream sundae and we found it the first day and this one's an adult female which means it's a really valuable specimen we can actually use it for describing the species formally and I don't know I couldn't be more happy we're losing species at a rate that's higher than the rate we're discovering species and unless we understand what's out there it's impossible to understand how to protect it and how to conserve it so for me I feel a fundamental duty to the earth really to document and improve our knowledge of species on the planet [Music] in this next episode see firsthand the deadly risks the volcanologist takes when examining in erupting volcano thanks for watching and be sure to subscribe to seeker [Music]