Rosemary Gillespie, Suresh Benjamin, Michael Brewer, Malia Ann Rivera, and I published a paper in
Current Biology , describing repeated evolution of forms (ecomorphs) of
Ariamnes stick spiders in Hawaii. In a nutshell, the spiders have evolved the same camouflaged forms on different islands, with dark forms on dead sticks, gold forms, which are surprisingly cryptic on leaves, and matte white forms found on lichen. This work received considerable press, including
Science ,
Newsweek ,
The Atlantic ,
Phys Org , and
UC Berkeley . It was great fun to take photos as part of this project, though challenging since we were in the field and mostly backpacking. I added a
gallery of some of the species from Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, and Maui.
