This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: WA's trapdoor spiders are endangered. Jackson Rendall is here to help—because he thinks they're "just really cool." "Even if you don't appreciate the spiders themselves, you have to appreciate their burrows," says Jackson.
In fact, it was burrows that first sparked his interest. "I was volunteering with pygmy blue-tongue lizards, which are endangered lizards that live in spider burrows," says Jackson. This work led him to a research group at Flinders University working on South Australia's spiny trapdoor spiders.
"I thought, 'I guess I'll give that a go,' then I realized how interesting they were," he says. The research was answering some basic questions, like how deep the burrows go (about 16 cm [6 inches]). They were also answering some thornier ones, like how many spiderlings hatch at once (about 30), whether size matters for male spider reproduction (probably not) and how long spider mating lasts (about 7 minutes). (Jackson wasn't around for that bit, but he'll gladly show you the video.) Because if you're trying to save a species, you need to know how it makes babies.
Now in Perth as a Forrest Scholar with UWA's Centre for Evolutionary Biology, Jackson's Ph.D. is on WA's shield-backed trapdoor spider. His focus is less on the "how" of spider reproduction and more on the "who." That is, are these hidden, immovable groups of spiders genetically diverse, or are they horrifically inbred? Figuring that out takes legwork, in more ways than one.
"It was four months of fieldwork … just wandering around in the forest, looking at the ground," says Jackson. Over time, he's developed a real-life "spidey sense." "You're driving around the Wheatbelt, and you're like, 'Oh, that gives good vibes for finding spiders.' And you pull over, and sure enough, there's trapdoor spiders there." Jackson might know it when he sees it, but it's hard to pin down exactly what "spider vibes" are—which is a problem when you're trying to describe which spider habitats need protecting. Once Jackson finds a spider, he needs to figure out whether or not it's inbred.
"We're collecting tissue samples from the spiders, which is … a leg," says Jackson. The legs drop on their own, like a lizard's tail, and can grow back when the spider molts. It's exactly this kind of sample collection that a spider sex tape can help with. (If you skipped the video, spider mating involves a lot of leg tapping.) "Knowing which legs are involved in mating actually helps inform which legs we take as tissue samples," says Jackson.
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