LinEpig

My Subfamily Album

Some very preliminary imaging of erigonine epigyna

My friend Elizabeth volunteers at the museum. One day she sent me some pictures of hahniids...

“I took these through the eyepiece with my digital camera,” she wrote.

Immediately I thought of ...

Linyphiidae.

Linyphiidae

• Small, diverse and problematic

• Often considered hard to identify, especially the females

• Worldwide, second in described species, but No. 1 by number of genera

• Account for > ¼ of all spider species in the Midwest, and > 30% in Canada

Agyneta barrowsi

Female spider anatomy

http://www.nmnh.si.edu/highlight/sem/highlight/spiders/spiders.htm

Agyneta barrowsi

Agyneta barrowsi

A. barrowsi photo Chamberlin & Ivie 1944

My Subfamily: Erigoninae

The erigonines account for 90% of linyphiid diversity. In North America, there are 107 genera with 952 species.

Female erigonines are the only North American spiders with no key to genus

Atlas of Southeastern Linyphiidae

Atlas of Eastern North American Linyphiidae

Atlas of North American Linyphiidae (?)

The liniphiid “flipbooks”

CanonPowershot A 610

5.0 megapixel $129

Microscopy equipment

Olympus SZ-10 research stereo scope

Q-Color 3 USB digital camera attachment using QI imaging camera (TWAIN) plug-in

“My protocol”

• Clean and distinct specimen

• Clean alcohol, chilled

• Fine black sand

• Watch glass on a margarine lid

• Minimize vibration

• Work quickly before alcohol heats up

Eperigone maculata(= Mermessus maculatus)

Eperigone maculata

LinEpig Crosby & Bishop 1928

(= Mermessus maculatus)

Eridantes erigonoides

Eridantes erigonoides

LinEpig Crosby & Bishop 1933

Hypselistes florens

Hypselistes florens

LinEpig Crosby & Bishop 1933

Hypselistes florens

Atlas of Southeastern Linyphiidae, M Draney 2004

Tapinocyba simplex

Tapinocyba simplex

LinEpig Crosby & Bishop 1933

Erigone dentosa

LinEpig Atlas of Southeastern Linyphiidae

Spirembolus

S. erratus S. hibernus

S. novellus S. pusilus

Picasa

Google’s photo sharing site

LinEpig

Eperigone tridentata(= Mermessus tridentatus)

Social networking

Photo-sharing albums let us post, share and search across what are essentially our “microscope field notes.”

Map Location

Georeferencing

Why do this?

• Recognizable images of tiny specimens

• Positive aid in identification

• Reasonable time and resource expenditure

• Readily sharable

Frustrations

• Images are a bit fuzzy, and glare-y

• We have only imaged a small fraction of what’s out there

What’s next We think it should be possible to get much

clearer definition by compositing even just 2-3 images.

We will be glad to receive any useful feedback.

We hope that some of our colleagues will be willing to lend us their ID’d erigonines long enough to have their pictures taken.

Wishlist...

Floricoumus rostratus Idionella formosa Origanates rostratus

Paracornicularia bicapillata Pelecopsidis frontalis Sisicottus montigenus

http://picasaweb.google.com/nina.sandlin/LinEpig

Nina SandlinSpiders - ZoologyThe Field Museum1400 South Lake Shore Drive Chicago, IL 60605-2496 USA nsandlin@fieldmusuem.org

Thanks

• Petra Sierwald, Kevin Pitz, Elizabeth Simmons – Field Museum, Chicago

• Michael Draney – UW Green Bay• Rod Crawford – Burke Museum, UW Seattle• Robert Edwards – Woods Hole, Mass.• Efrat Gavish – Mitrani Dept of Desert Ecology,

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel