Spider World Records: a resource for using organismal biology as a hook for science learning
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
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Abstract
The public reputation of spiders is that they are deadly poisonous, brown and nondescript, and hairy and ugly. There are tales describing how they lay eggs in human skin, frequent toilet seats in airports, and crawl into your mouth when you are sleeping. Misinformation about spiders in the popular media and on the World Wide Web is rampant, leading to distorted perceptions and negative feelings about spiders. Despite these negative feelings, however, spiders offer intrigue and mystery and can be used to effectively engage even arachnophobic individuals. As such, we contend that spider biology can be a convincing hook for engaging people of all ages in science-related learning. Towards this end, and in order to provide an enthusiastic knowledge base for spider-related learning, we provide essential information about spider biology followed by a compilation of Spider World Records. We choose a world-record style format, as it is known to be an effective tool of engaging youth and adults alike. We group our records into the categories of Taxonomy, Morphology/Physiology and Ecology/Behaviour. We further reported on curiosities and clarify fake news about these underappreciated animals. Our contribution is specifically aimed to raise public awareness and attractiveness of spiders, meanwhile providing the first official knowledge base for world spider records.
Cite this as
2017. Spider World Records: a resource for using organismal biology as a hook for science learning. PeerJ Preprints 5:e3028v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.3028v1note This preprint is not peer-reviewed. You may wish to reference the subsequent peer-reviewed version of this article.
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This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
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Competing Interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Author Contributions
Stefano Mammola wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, conceived the idea, assembled the first draft of records.
Peter Michalik reviewed drafts of the paper, suggested additional records, is responsible for the online publication of the records.
Eileen A Hebets wrote the paper, suggested additional records, gave the educational focus to the paper.
Marco Isaia reviewed drafts of the paper, conceived the idea, suggested additional records.
Data Deposition
The following information was supplied regarding data availability:
The record list will be linked to the website of the International Society of Arachnology (www.arachnology.org). This research has no raw data or codes.
Funding
The authors received no funding for this work.