On April 3, 2018 we stayed at the Takarakka bush resort in Carnarvon Gorge. One of the many highlights of Carnarvon George is the sky. Specifically, the entire Milky Way. Which, as our tutor brought up, used to be a sight that everyone could see. It is because of our cities light pollution that […]
3/7/2018: Bioassays at the University of Queensland!!
As the end of the Brisbane portion of our trip quickly approaches, the final venom biology projects are coming to a close. All 24 of us are completing independent projects based off of our personal interests in venom effects, evolutionary history, and protein composition in venoms across numerous species. For my independent project, I have […]
Keep on trucking
On February 5th we started our day on Maria island off the coast of Eastern Tasmania. We had an early morning ferry ride off the island, then we drove to Hobart, where we had a lecture and a screening of the movie 16 Legs. This movie was about the life of a cave spider that […]
Threat Level Assassin Bug
We had a very interesting day this week because the entire group had the chance to collect assassin bugs for venom milking. We started the day by visiting the world renowned venom facility, IMB (Institute of Molecular Bioscience) at the University of Queensland. After a quick lecture about assassin bugs, we bussed out to the […]
Witnessing an Ancient Lineage of Cave Spiders
February 8, 2018 In Tasmania a main focus of our study was examining deep-time historical events and how they effect the biogeography of the land today. Throughout our time traveling from beaches on Maria island to forests in Maydena we had the privilege to physically look at how the historical events lead to the species […]