A mother, a daughter, a spider and a scientific paper

If you couldn't tell from my links and comments, I'm a huge fan of Project Noah. I have learned so much about nature and photography over the last 2 1/2 years! It is much more than a hobby to me, especially now that two of my teenagers contribute to the site and all three share my love of the outdoors.

While on one of my searches for new-to-me critters last year, I found a spider that I hadn't seen before. I submitted it to Bug Guide and they said it looks a lot like a spider from South America. I was contacted by someone and given the name of an Entomologist that is here in So-Cal. He came down to help look for another specimen in our backyard but we were unsuccessful. It figures we couldn't find it when we really wanted to. Apparently they're active at night, not in the day.

3 weeks later, one of my daughters helped me catch one of these elusive spiders and we sent the live, young female away for science. We found out that there was a manuscript in process about this spider establishing in So-Cal.  She was reared in captivity and about 6 months later, the paper was published with my daughter and I referenced :)

This has been an exciting find and I'm looking forward to the next critter that contributes to science!