SpiderFest provides eight-legged educational fun for students

Lewis & Clark College students and faculty gathered together with Portland residents to kick off their Halloween weekend at SpiderFest in Bodine 101 on Oct. 30, eating snacks while watching Sicarius and Loxosceles spiders eating crickets, spitting venom, mating, and covering themselves with sand.
With games like “Pin-the-tail on the Vinegaroon,” a build-your-own-spider station, a chocolate fountain, and several spider and Halloween-themed snacks and treats, this year’s SpiderFest was a full-blown extravaganza.

LC student Daniel Saxton (’12) said, “SpiderFest makes me feel like a little kid again!”

About 100 students, professors, community members, parents, and children celebrated the event.

The current research technician and LC alum Rebecca Duncan (’06) explained that arachnids are not just for scientists. 

“We want to show people why science (and our research on spider diversity and venom evolution in particular) is important, fun, and to show kids that they can be scientists,” said Duncan.

Professor Greta Binford, head of the Spider Research Lab, described the origins of SpiderFest. When Binford first came to LC in 2003, she threw a Halloween-themed lab-warming party.

“Originally it wasn’t going to be an annual event, but people kept asking me, ‘When’s SpiderFest happening?’ So it was back by popular demand,” said Binford.

SpiderFest has evolved into a public outreach event, spread to the community entirely by word of mouth.

Students and staff working in the Binford Lab this year are Rebecca Duncan, post-doc Pamela Zobel-Thropp, Tessa Marzulla (’11), Ari Demarco (’09), Micah Depper (’10), and Alec Kerins (’09).

The spider researchers showed a variety of diverse spiders from around the globe by demonstrating activities such as venom milking, cricket feeding, mating, and sand adhesion of the Sicarius, or “six-eyed sand spider.”

Leah Flumerfelt (’11) said, “[SpiderFest] was amazing. Everything I saw was incredibly fascinating. I’m a bio major, so it was interesting to meet some students in the Biology department and see what they’re doing [with their major].”

SpiderFest attendees ranged from toddlers, to elementary school children, to college students and LC faculty, to parents and grandparents.

One grade-schooler named Henry, a self-proclaimed “Bug Expert,” said that he recognized a few tarantulas from a spider poster that he had seen “at home.” He attended SpiderFest with his father, who found out about the event after meeting Binford at this summer’s BugFest.

The Spider Lab researches spiders in the Loxosceles and Sicarius families, which includes the Brown Recluse spider. Although the venom contained in these spiders is deadly to humans, Binford contests that there is really not much to fear about them.

“Brown recluse is really a very good name for them,” said Binford. “These spiders are very docile.”

The Sicarius family of spiders are very popular, and are a favorite to many in the lab, including Duncan.

“What’s so cool about them is that they bury themselves in the sand or dirt and it sticks to their bodies, making them the same color as the background.
The sand and dirt particles stick because they are covered with hairs that have a special structure that causes particles to adhere to them,” said Duncan.

Binford’s research extends far beyond the LC campus – she has led trips to South Africa, Namibia, Peru, Argentina, and Costa Rica to collect spiders, and is currently working with scientists in Mexico on the development of a Sicarius anti-venom.

“We’re very close,” said Binford. “Actually, the drug is on trial right now with the FDA down in Mexico.”