After a successful community event at the Scout Hall in Esperance, I went to Hell Fire Bay with Entomologist Dr Nik and Arachnologist Jeremy Wilson from the Western Australian Museum. The Botanists marked out a new survey site the day before and the team needed a variety of insects and spiders from the new location. Nik showed me the technique used to catch bugs out of plants using a net, stick, pooter and collection container. I went off hitting as many plants as I could and found of few different types of bugs and spiders.

Jeremy is a PhD researcher collecting information on wishbone spiders, Aname, a burrowing species native to dry inland regions of Australia. Our survey site is too close to the coast for him to find these spiders, however, he was able to teach us about a variety of local species. We found some green spiders commonly known as crab or flower spiders that belong to the Thomisidae family. Once we were back at the lab, we took a look at the three spiders I found in some bushes as female adult jumping spiders, Opisthoncus.

My favourite find was the pseudoscorpiones, Synsphyronus, found underneath pieces of granite. These arachnids are found throughout Australia and the Western Australian Museum was keen to collect samples from the survey site. Watch the video to find out more.

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