Steven Cassidy

The things I do when I want a spider colony

@AndreCuvier They’re the BEST!

@StegoSteven I absolutely love Eresidae ! 😍

Such a juicy girl 😍

And other times I’m just like 🤨

Sometimes these capture webs are just 🔥

@AmphibiArik Well didn't even know it was a skink 😄

@StegoSteven A nondescript skink and a nondescript road, gee thanks Steve. (Skink is probably a Trachylepis?? and toad is some Sclerophrys).

Found some herps in Northern Namibia. @AmphibiArik ID please

Finding some nice polydomous colonies (colonies with >1 nest connected by a single capture web). It looks so cool when they make big ones with crazy looking capture webs

Love waking up to these birds. Not sure what they are though, any help birder friends?

@Lhesperus I do not. Just looked it up though and it kind of looks like black widow

@StegoSteven You know much about African Latrodectus?

Playing with hundreds of spiders just hits different

@Lhesperus I got lucky this time that hasn’t happened yet on this thread haha

@StegoSteven I'm not going to read the comments because I fear it is filled with "NOPES". To me this looks like some good clean fun.

Not surpassing that most people have trouble finding S. tentoriicola as their nests are pretty covert and you kind of just have to wonder into them on foot. They also seem to like grass where I’m finding them, which is the same color as their web. Feeling very lucky 😊

I’m finding more subsocial pale velvet spiders (Stegodyphus tentoriicola) than I ever thought I would!!! I previously only ever found maybe one or two in a whole field season. This time I’ve found nearly 50 along a 300m transect in a span of a couple hours 😳

I’m currently up at 2am because I was so excited to enter my field data and play with it in R. Getting fresh data is such an adrenaline rush that I had forgotten about after the last 3 years

These spiders are smaller than a dime but collectively can bring down prey as large as my hand. Amazing

Found a little baby in the night

They’re nests can actually be hotter than the surrounding desert so they hangout just outside their nest

Stegodyphus dumicola forms silken nests that they surround with capture web. Sometimes they even make multiple that remain connected. I’m trying to understand what could cause this and the subsequent consequences. I’m finding some pretty cool multi-nest colonies this year!

My favorite part is separating them from their nest until they’re a pile of spiders