Angela Chuang
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arachnonaut.bsky.social
Angela Chuang
@arachnonaut.bsky.social
1.3K followers 740 following 150 posts
Invasion Biology, Arachnology, Ethology, Agroecology | Washington College | board game enthusiast and reviewer
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arachnonaut.bsky.social
Dude yeah! Spellcheck got really wonky on me last week for a few specific lines of an exam I was writing -- I even checked to make sure I hadn't switched it to a different language or something weird. Still haven't figured it out
November 10, 2025 at 1:47 AM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
gotta be a long-jawed spider then!

photo credit: Richard Ong
Green Tetragnathid spider with extremely long, brownish chelicerae in the foreground on a green leaf. Picture by Richard Ong
September 23, 2025 at 12:30 PM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
so much waste adding up 🫣
Screenshot of an Atlantic article titled "The Trump Administration Is Spending $2 Million to Figure Out Whether DEI Causes Plane Crashes", by Isaac Stanley-Becker.
June 7, 2025 at 7:11 PM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
Had a lot of fun reviewing the #boardgame #Finspan w/
@oschwery.bsky.social for @nature.com!

This fish-themed game harnesses some of my favorite aspects of #Wingspan, blending stunning art & trophic ecology with fast-paced play.

rdcu.be/eg2Dx

#Finspan by @stonemaiergames.com
The cover of a board game review in the "Books and Arts" section of the science journal, Nature. The page is mostly taken up by a large color photo of the game board, which features detailed pictures of fish cards. The title of the review is "This board game lets you dip into marine ecology".
April 10, 2025 at 6:00 PM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
Unfortunately, like so many other fruits (strawberries?!), I feel like the store bought apricots can be very underwhelming.

Say, do people grow Syzygium fruits in your area and do you like them? I always look for these when I visit tropical areas. 😋
An image with a white backgroudn showing two Syzygium fruits (known in some places as rose apples). Both are a reddish, rose color. The one in the foreground is sitting upright, showing its bell shape and the other is on its side, showing a cross-like "navel".
March 24, 2025 at 4:35 PM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
Was reminded that people occasionally rub gasoline on wounds 🤦😆 (but whyyyy)

#SpiderLiterature
Screenshot from a scientific paper with the following paragraphs: Section title: Venenation by Argiope aurantia At 2:30 PM on Oct 11, 1967, a 43-year-old white woman from Decatur, Ga, sought medical attention at DeKalb General Hospital. The patient was seen by one of us (T.B.R.), to whom she reported that 30 minutes earlier she had been bitten by a large spider. The patient had been on her hands and knees working in the yard when she felt a sharp pain just above the right knee. She reflexively slapped the spot and hit a spider. Even though the patient felt no symptoms other than immediate pain at the bite site, she was sufficiently concerned about the incident to seek medical attention. On the way to the hospital, the pa¬ tient stopped at a service station and rubbed gasoline on the bite. At the hospital the patient complainel of pain in the groin. This symptom, which developed subsequent to the bite, was suggestive of a neurotoxin. Physical examination revealed nothing unusual. A small lesion, probably irritated by the topical application of gasoline, was present at the bite site on the distal, anterolateral aspect of the right thigh. This lesion consisted of a nonvesicular induration about 0.5 cm in diameter. The induration was surrounded by an erythematous area 3 cm in diameter.
March 10, 2025 at 9:01 PM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
Just found out that the US Forest Service lists their publications under "Treesearch" instead of Research 😄🌲 So cute!
A screenshot of a webpage. the top banner shows it is from the Forest Service of the US Dept. of Agriculture. Under Home -> Publications, the heading says "Treesearch" and lists 62,820 publications that you can search.
February 28, 2025 at 10:33 PM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
Extra funny bc the genus of spiders that may be responsible for this egg sac w/a little rattail also have abdomens with varying looks that resemble rattails 😂 (Look up Poltys spiders!)

Might just be a lovely coincidence tho
Photo of Poltys mouhouti by iNaturalist user Kris Santhosh. Photo with a black background showing an orange spider suspended upside down from sillk webbing with its legs folded into its body. The body shape is triangular and a long abdominal extrusion extends 1.25x the length of the body, looking like a monkey tail, ending in a comma-like curl. An additional burnt orange splotch can be partially observed on the distal end of its abdomen from this side view of the spider. iNat observation can be found at: https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/67746115
January 12, 2025 at 3:42 PM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
In awe of this cool iNat observation by @nickybay.bsky.social of a spider egg sac featuring magenta silk. Never seen anything like it!

Also some discussion on what it can be in the post, as another user has potentially found the same thing in Queensland.

www.inaturalist.org/observations...
A spider egg sac attached to the underside of a fern frond. It looks very flocculent, with the silk on the edges a vivid magenta color. An extra twist of silk protrudes from the distal end of the egg sac.
January 11, 2025 at 7:29 PM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
Side-eyeing the editor of this Mayer 1953 paper for not asking the author to include a photo/diagram because I'm dying to know what 🕷️ w/tiny weights tied to them looked like 😂

#SpiderLiterature
An exerpt from Clovis Moore's "The Life Cycle, Habitat and Variation in Selected Web Parameters in the Spider, Nephila clavipes Koch (Araneidae)" that reads: Density of weblines- Mayer (1953) was able to increase the weight of a spider by fastening a small weight to the dorsum of the abdomen, and found that such "heavier" spiders built webs with wider meshes than before.
January 9, 2025 at 3:17 PM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
Had to check the @stonemaiergames.com website to confirm this but Finspan is happening, apparently?!?! #Wingspan but for fish! 🐟🐡🐠

Excited to see what kinds of fish biology they bring to this!
A board game cover, featuring a flying fish with a watercolor-based blue background. The title says FINSPAN: A Wingspan Game.
January 8, 2025 at 4:19 PM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
Finally took Amritsar off the shelf of shame. Loved the giant elephant meeples and the mancala mechanic!
Half the game board of Amritsar pictured along with a player board. A hand holds a green wooden elephant meeple in the background, which holds a green cube.
January 5, 2025 at 9:00 PM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
A joro spider silhouette would be helpful if you have time! The only Trichonephila sp. on Phylopic shows a different species with left tufts. Thanks!
December 26, 2024 at 9:32 PM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
Good to know I'm not the only one who's thought of a swimming pool as one giant pitfall trap...

From a paper reporting distributional patterns of gnaphosid spiders (Schneider et al. 2016):
Text from a manuscript saying: "In addition, a year-round sampling regimen using a swimming pool surface as a pitfall trap (manuscript in preparation) has allowed us to analyze the temporal distribution of this species at one site in Marin County."
December 25, 2024 at 1:03 AM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
!!!

Also, I'm looking at these little guys and suddenly wondering if those ceti eels (i.e. ear bugs) from Wrath of Khan are actually larvae which have an adult form that looks as majestic as an antlion 😆
A still from the movie Wrath of Khan, with a creature known as a ceti eel, which resembles an antlion larvae
December 17, 2024 at 4:44 AM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
😭 My first time reading about an invert population probably rendered extinct by an earthquake...

From doi.org/10.1371/jour...
Text reading: The catastrophic earthquake that shook Taiwan on 21 September 1999, known as the “Jiji earthquake”, resulted in multiple landslides in the habitat of P. m. sylvina that permanently altered the landscape in many parts of the Island. Efforts to restore the vegetation in those areas is ongoing [10]. At that time of the year, P. m. sylvina populations would have been at pupal stage and attached to the hostplants that were completely buried under the mudslides. Since then, despite exhaustive searches, P. m. sylvina has not been seen again, even though its larval hostplant still persists in the areas where it used to frequent. It is thus presumed extinct [1, 9, 11]. If this is truly the case, it may be the first known instance of an earthquake resulting in the complete demise of a local butterfly population. Figure 2 from the paper, labeled "Collection specimens of P. m. sylvina and P. m. schantungensis from Taiwan."
November 23, 2024 at 11:23 PM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
Wasn't sure if I'd still see Joro spiders out this late in the season, but sure enough, I found the itty bittiest Joro spider still hanging out this warm November morning…

Elkridge, MD
Small joro spider in the foreground, various vegetation and bramble in the background A joro spider sitting at the bottom of a standard insect vial. A car steering wheel is in the background
November 21, 2024 at 8:46 PM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
I've only heard of ladybird spiders in the context of their conservation in the UK, so I was NOT prepared to see them while in Valais, Switzerland. This was a lifer!!! 🤩

Does anyone know if this is Eresus kollari (seems more likely, based on range?) or E. sandaliatus?
An aerial view photo of a spider walking on road. Its abdomen is bright red, with two pairs of button-like black spots. Its cephalothorax is black and its legs vary between brown or black, with white banding.
September 4, 2024 at 6:11 PM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
lol go figure these guys start emerging on the day I'm packing my things up for a move! But...success!

@ymilesz.bsky.social lemme know if you want them!
Photo of a petri dish full of woolly galls with two adult wasps visible in the top corner.They are about the size of an ant, with plump abdomen and an ovipositor tha is barely visible.
February 14, 2024 at 2:28 PM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
Update: I found a whole bunch more outside, mostly on the ground and not on leaves. Do you think the wasps have already emerged from these? I'll keep them in any case...
Sandwich Tupperware containing about 150 small pompom-looking falls. A few are attached to blade-shaped oak leaves.
September 29, 2023 at 10:23 PM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
Found these oak leaves outside my apartment and am curious what these adorable fuzzy growths are. They’re fairly firm to the touch. Anyone recognize them? Fungal bodies? Galls ( @ymilesz.bsky.social)?
Two leaves placed on the pages of a planner. The proximal leaf is longer, with one brown side and the other still yellow-green at the leaf node. On top of the leaf sit 2-3 fuzzy balls, about 4-5 mm in height and width. They are resemble a teddy bear in color and texture. In the background is a smaller brown leaf with a single fuzz ball on it.
September 29, 2023 at 5:33 PM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
Fieldwork clearly peaked today with the discovery of this regal moth caterpillar! The largest caterpillar in North America and an intimidating sight to behold!

(Macon, GA)
An excited-looking woman wear a Gators cap and a safety vest over a green field shirt gestures at the bare branches of a thin tree. A blue green caterpillar almost the length of her hand sits on a branch. In the foreground is a blue green caterpillar clinging to the bare branches of a thin tree. It has at least four visible orange horns. It is nearly an inch in width and over 5-6 inches long. A car and the road with woods across the street are in the background.
September 17, 2023 at 11:35 PM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
Saw the biggest, glossiest, fuzziest Argiope aurantia when kicking off some field work in Georgia yesterday! So much larger than the ones I see in FL citrus groves... 😊
An argiope aurantia spider, with legs arranged in an X pattern, and yellow and black abdomen sits in the middle of the photograph. She has a white stabilimentum, or webbing that runs vertically down her web. In the background is grass and vegetation by the side of the road. Beyond that is a country road with grass and woods on the other side.
September 17, 2023 at 12:16 AM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
Any #StarTrek fans on here? There is a new genus of spiders called Roddenberryus, with three new species named R. kirk, R. spock, and R. mccoy!
Screenshot from the title of a paper called "Strange new spidesr: on Roddenberryus, a new and unusual caponiid genus (Araneae, Caponiidae)" Screenshot of the first part of a paper abstract: The new nopine genus Roddenberryus gen. nov. is erected to include in total five species: three new species, R. kirk gen. et. nov. from Costa Rica, R. spock gen. et. sp. nov from Campeche, Meixco and R. mccoy gen. et . sp. nov. from Baja California Sur, Mexico.
September 10, 2023 at 10:42 PM
arachnonaut.bsky.social
Always fun to go out on some site visits and meet the extension agents and master gardeners (MG) collecting data for our residential citrus project!

Ento-friends, one of the MG emailed me later to ask if these are grasshopper eggs (I think not). Anyone recognize them?
Subject standing on a garden lawn next to a small citrus tree that comes up to her face in height. There is a "Citrus Research Project" sign in front of her. The hindsight of a citrus leaf, with a grasshopper towards the leaf node and a mass of round, white eggs on the mid to distal end of the leaf. The eggs are spaced closely together and spherical in shape.
August 25, 2023 at 9:16 PM