1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:16,040 Welcome to the Zoologist's Campfire, the podcast where animal professionals share their best 2 00:00:16,040 --> 00:00:17,040 stories. 3 00:00:17,040 --> 00:00:22,880 Today, Professor Miquel Arnedo from the Institute for Research on Biodiversity of the University 4 00:00:22,880 --> 00:00:30,320 of Barcelona joins us around the crackling fire to share some of his many adventures. 5 00:00:30,320 --> 00:00:35,980 Miquel is an evolutionary biologist who studies life's incredible diversity by investigating 6 00:00:35,980 --> 00:00:40,100 isolated ecosystems such as islands and caves. 7 00:00:40,100 --> 00:00:45,960 He focuses on spiders to understand the threads that make up the web of life. 8 00:00:45,960 --> 00:00:50,160 Miquel's research has taken him around the world and his findings have been published 9 00:00:50,160 --> 00:00:53,000 in hundreds of scientific papers. 10 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:55,480 Miquel, welcome to the podcast. 11 00:00:55,480 --> 00:00:56,480 Hi, Arie. 12 00:00:56,480 --> 00:00:57,480 How are you? 13 00:00:57,480 --> 00:00:59,520 Thank you for having me today. 14 00:00:59,520 --> 00:01:01,640 Yeah, well, I'm glad to have you. 15 00:01:01,640 --> 00:01:05,520 It's nice to have a fellow arachnologist. 16 00:01:05,520 --> 00:01:10,640 So before we get into your stories, I know you have some. 17 00:01:10,640 --> 00:01:15,040 I know that you are particularly interested in spiders and I can completely imagine that, 18 00:01:15,040 --> 00:01:16,760 of course, I love spiders as well. 19 00:01:16,760 --> 00:01:21,200 But what is it that you love so much about spiders? 20 00:01:21,200 --> 00:01:27,360 Well, actually, once I reach that point, I will say everything. 21 00:01:27,360 --> 00:01:30,880 But the funny thing is that sometimes people ask me about that. 22 00:01:30,880 --> 00:01:33,840 That was kind of like a long life love for spiders. 23 00:01:33,840 --> 00:01:40,760 I guess some of my colleagues, maybe yourself, you started as a kid, kind of going to the 24 00:01:40,760 --> 00:01:46,120 field and getting obsessed with spiders, with bugs in general. 25 00:01:46,120 --> 00:01:47,760 I have to say I was not like that. 26 00:01:47,760 --> 00:01:50,520 I mean, when I was a kid, I loved nature. 27 00:01:50,520 --> 00:01:58,320 But I was not somebody who would go and collect and have his room full of all these bugs all 28 00:01:58,320 --> 00:01:59,320 over. 29 00:01:59,320 --> 00:02:03,800 I actually got interested in spiders once I started my PhD. 30 00:02:03,800 --> 00:02:09,360 When I was looking for a topic, at that time, I was really interested in phylogeny and evolutionary 31 00:02:09,360 --> 00:02:10,360 biology. 32 00:02:10,360 --> 00:02:15,520 So I was really ready to work with any organism that offered me the opportunity to work on 33 00:02:15,520 --> 00:02:16,520 phylogenetics. 34 00:02:16,520 --> 00:02:21,520 It happened at the time that there was this professional, Carlos Rivera, with the spider 35 00:02:21,520 --> 00:02:22,520 specialist as well. 36 00:02:22,520 --> 00:02:27,720 He had this project to study this group of spiders in the Canary Islands from an evolutionary 37 00:02:27,720 --> 00:02:28,720 standpoint. 38 00:02:28,720 --> 00:02:32,880 So I just joined him in that research. 39 00:02:32,880 --> 00:02:36,640 Once you start to with spiders, I have to say there is no way out. 40 00:02:36,640 --> 00:02:38,560 Then you'll absolutely fall in love with them. 41 00:02:38,560 --> 00:02:39,560 They're amazing creatures. 42 00:02:39,560 --> 00:02:46,080 Basically, the last 30, 35 years of my life, I've been fully devoted to spiders. 43 00:02:46,080 --> 00:02:47,840 There's no way back. 44 00:02:47,840 --> 00:02:51,840 And traveling everywhere, climbing mountains and going down into caves. 45 00:02:51,840 --> 00:02:52,840 Right. 46 00:02:52,840 --> 00:02:53,840 Right. 47 00:02:53,840 --> 00:02:54,840 Lucky. 48 00:02:54,840 --> 00:02:58,360 I've been so lucky to have the opportunity to do a lot of field work in very different 49 00:02:58,360 --> 00:02:59,360 places. 50 00:02:59,360 --> 00:03:04,760 As you were mentioning in the introduction, I didn't particularly focus on isolated systems, 51 00:03:04,760 --> 00:03:07,800 mostly islands, but also mountaintops. 52 00:03:07,800 --> 00:03:13,400 But I also had the opportunity to join other colleagues in other trips and different places. 53 00:03:13,400 --> 00:03:18,320 Basically, every time I have the opportunity to join somebody to go to the field, and I 54 00:03:18,320 --> 00:03:23,440 have less and less time for doing so, I always try to join in. 55 00:03:23,440 --> 00:03:24,440 Yeah. 56 00:03:24,440 --> 00:03:25,440 Yeah. 57 00:03:25,440 --> 00:03:29,080 Once you get big and important, you get to do less and less actual research. 58 00:03:29,080 --> 00:03:30,080 Yeah. 59 00:03:30,080 --> 00:03:31,080 That's a sad story. 60 00:03:31,080 --> 00:03:37,400 But we shouldn't say that because otherwise the young generation will have to follow it. 61 00:03:37,400 --> 00:03:38,400 Well, they can change it probably. 62 00:03:38,400 --> 00:03:42,480 And you're taking a lot of students with you in the field as well, right? 63 00:03:42,480 --> 00:03:43,480 Yeah. 64 00:03:43,480 --> 00:03:49,440 Well, most of the field work is always associated to funded projects. 65 00:03:49,440 --> 00:03:55,280 And most of the time, this project also involves PhD students or master's students or undergrad 66 00:03:55,280 --> 00:03:56,280 students. 67 00:03:56,280 --> 00:04:00,920 And I guess part of the training we offer is basically taking them to the field as well 68 00:04:00,920 --> 00:04:04,760 and getting them to learn basically how to... 69 00:04:04,760 --> 00:04:09,600 All the procedures, all the methods, which are basically focused on field work. 70 00:04:09,600 --> 00:04:10,600 Right. 71 00:04:10,600 --> 00:04:11,600 Right. 72 00:04:11,600 --> 00:04:17,480 And so you've had some adventures and you've thought about some of your best ones today. 73 00:04:17,480 --> 00:04:19,000 I'm really curious. 74 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:22,920 So let's start with your first story. 75 00:04:22,920 --> 00:04:23,920 Where did it happen? 76 00:04:23,920 --> 00:04:25,920 What were you going to do? 77 00:04:25,920 --> 00:04:26,920 What was the plan? 78 00:04:26,920 --> 00:04:27,920 Yeah. 79 00:04:27,920 --> 00:04:34,680 I tried to take samples from different moments in time and in different places as well. 80 00:04:34,680 --> 00:04:35,680 One of the... 81 00:04:35,680 --> 00:04:36,680 One story... 82 00:04:36,680 --> 00:04:37,680 Well, I don't know how fun is that. 83 00:04:37,680 --> 00:04:44,400 But I mean, at that moment, it was terrifying and also unlovable. 84 00:04:44,400 --> 00:04:51,720 That was actually one of the first international congresses I joined. 85 00:04:51,720 --> 00:04:52,720 And that was in... 86 00:04:52,720 --> 00:04:53,720 We're talking about 2001, right? 87 00:04:53,720 --> 00:04:56,020 Like more than 20 years ago. 88 00:04:56,020 --> 00:05:00,360 And that was the International Congress of Technology in South Africa in Bad Blast. 89 00:05:00,360 --> 00:05:03,080 And because it was such a long trip. 90 00:05:03,080 --> 00:05:05,080 At that time, I was part of Hawaii. 91 00:05:05,080 --> 00:05:08,400 So it was pretty close to the world to go there. 92 00:05:08,400 --> 00:05:09,760 So I thought that I would be also... 93 00:05:09,760 --> 00:05:12,560 After doing all this, to spend some time then collecting. 94 00:05:12,560 --> 00:05:18,800 So I joined a group of author technologies that were planning to do some field work there. 95 00:05:18,800 --> 00:05:23,760 And because that was my first time in Sub-Saharan Africa, I thought it would be a good opportunity 96 00:05:23,760 --> 00:05:26,560 to get to learn a little bit despite of how they are. 97 00:05:26,560 --> 00:05:27,560 So I joined them. 98 00:05:27,560 --> 00:05:29,000 And it was an amazing trip. 99 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:33,720 We spent like three weeks collecting all over. 100 00:05:33,720 --> 00:05:36,520 South Africa is an amazing country, right? 101 00:05:36,520 --> 00:05:37,520 Oh, no. 102 00:05:37,520 --> 00:05:38,520 That was crazy. 103 00:05:38,520 --> 00:05:39,520 That was absolutely crazy. 104 00:05:39,520 --> 00:05:42,640 In Central Asia, such a different ecosystem. 105 00:05:42,640 --> 00:05:49,760 And well, being born and raised in Europe, really, I mean, it's difficult for you to 106 00:05:49,760 --> 00:05:53,800 imagine that you can be surrounded by things again anytime it can hit you or just basically 107 00:05:53,800 --> 00:05:54,800 crash you. 108 00:05:54,800 --> 00:05:55,800 So it's kind of an experience. 109 00:05:55,800 --> 00:06:02,800 And at that particular time, we were actually visiting this nature reserve. 110 00:06:02,800 --> 00:06:04,920 It was called St. Lucia. 111 00:06:04,920 --> 00:06:10,520 That was a wetland, not far from Durban. 112 00:06:10,520 --> 00:06:14,960 And that was my first encounter with this usually like kind of like... 113 00:06:14,960 --> 00:06:23,800 At least in the cartoons for kids, these are always happy animals, the dark typos, hippopotamus. 114 00:06:23,800 --> 00:06:26,480 You know, remember, we were actually taking this guide. 115 00:06:26,480 --> 00:06:30,840 We were collecting in some of these wetland forests. 116 00:06:30,840 --> 00:06:35,720 And the guy just kind of like stresses that, you know, hippos are not like... 117 00:06:35,720 --> 00:06:40,080 It can be very, very dangerous, especially when they are on land, you know, because they 118 00:06:40,080 --> 00:06:41,080 are very short-sighted. 119 00:06:41,080 --> 00:06:44,520 And, you know, when they hear some noise, they basically kind of like run into you. 120 00:06:44,520 --> 00:06:49,640 But they also can be pretty nasty when they are in the water, especially, you know, you 121 00:06:49,640 --> 00:06:52,360 kind of like bothering them with a boat or something. 122 00:06:52,360 --> 00:06:57,040 So anyway, so he basically was giving us some hints, you know, about what to do and to do 123 00:06:57,040 --> 00:06:58,040 some tips. 124 00:06:58,040 --> 00:07:01,320 And basically we had to take this boat, this very basic boat. 125 00:07:01,320 --> 00:07:05,320 Basically it was a very narrow boat, kind of like old-fashioned canoe. 126 00:07:05,320 --> 00:07:09,840 I think there were five people one after the other in a line, you know. 127 00:07:09,840 --> 00:07:13,240 And we were basically crossing this river to go to this island that was like in the 128 00:07:13,240 --> 00:07:14,960 middle of the river to collect there. 129 00:07:14,960 --> 00:07:15,960 Of course, yeah. 130 00:07:15,960 --> 00:07:19,280 Yeah, basically we were like, you know, going with a boat with this guy. 131 00:07:19,280 --> 00:07:24,960 And he actually points, you know, a herd of hypo, you know, nearby. 132 00:07:24,960 --> 00:07:28,320 And all of a sudden, I mean, after actually we got these tips, you know, be careful with 133 00:07:28,320 --> 00:07:32,320 hypo, these hippo start to like to disappear, you know, they start to like sink, you know, 134 00:07:32,320 --> 00:07:35,880 to go underwater and disappearing from our view. 135 00:07:35,880 --> 00:07:37,640 And I was really uneasy. 136 00:07:37,640 --> 00:07:41,360 And all of a sudden this boat got stuck into a sand bank. 137 00:07:41,360 --> 00:07:42,360 Okay. 138 00:07:42,360 --> 00:07:47,760 And so we basically had to jump outside the water, into the water and try, you know, to 139 00:07:47,760 --> 00:07:50,960 reduce the load, the boat, and try to move the load. 140 00:07:50,960 --> 00:07:56,600 And I walk, you know, carrying the boat to, I will say, maybe 50 meters. 141 00:07:56,600 --> 00:08:01,440 And you know, that experience of doing that with the hypo disappearing like just 100 meters 142 00:08:01,440 --> 00:08:03,920 from you, that was quite the experience. 143 00:08:03,920 --> 00:08:04,920 Nothing happened, I have to say. 144 00:08:04,920 --> 00:08:07,880 But you know, I had the time of my life. 145 00:08:07,880 --> 00:08:11,040 So when we arrived to the island, it was the happiest person ever. 146 00:08:11,040 --> 00:08:15,800 So that was kind of, at that time it was terrifying, but then we were thinking about that, it was 147 00:08:15,800 --> 00:08:16,800 kind of fun. 148 00:08:16,800 --> 00:08:19,800 Yeah, I mean, if they would have stayed at the surface, you know where they are. 149 00:08:19,800 --> 00:08:20,800 Yeah, exactly. 150 00:08:20,800 --> 00:08:21,800 I literally couldn't spot them. 151 00:08:21,800 --> 00:08:22,800 You're right, right. 152 00:08:22,800 --> 00:08:23,800 Yeah. 153 00:08:23,800 --> 00:08:25,680 But that, no, they disappeared just at the time where you have to think, you have to 154 00:08:25,680 --> 00:08:26,680 jump outside the boat. 155 00:08:26,680 --> 00:08:30,720 So that was not a very kind of reshoring situation. 156 00:08:30,720 --> 00:08:32,800 But anyway, we survived that. 157 00:08:32,800 --> 00:08:36,760 It was just, you know, I mean, I kind of like to think about that time because that was 158 00:08:36,760 --> 00:08:42,560 my first introduction, you know, with like real wild, big animals, you know. 159 00:08:42,560 --> 00:08:43,560 Yeah, yeah. 160 00:08:43,560 --> 00:08:46,720 I mean, in Europe, basically, the only thing that can kill you is probably another human 161 00:08:46,720 --> 00:08:47,720 being. 162 00:08:47,720 --> 00:08:52,520 But, you know, these places are real big animals out there, you know. 163 00:08:52,520 --> 00:08:58,680 And it's kind of, again, it's a funny feeling for somebody who is not used to that. 164 00:08:58,680 --> 00:09:02,080 Yeah, and hippos kill more people than lions, I think. 165 00:09:02,080 --> 00:09:03,080 Oh, absolutely. 166 00:09:03,080 --> 00:09:10,240 They're the first, I think, in accidents with a wild fauna in Africa. 167 00:09:10,240 --> 00:09:15,720 I remember other places that we go on this trip, you know, there was this, it was hunting 168 00:09:15,720 --> 00:09:16,720 a reserve. 169 00:09:16,720 --> 00:09:21,040 And actually, in that place, we had to go with guys with rifles because, you know, a 170 00:09:21,040 --> 00:09:24,000 week before, a lion had eaten one of the visitors. 171 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:28,680 So yeah, so I mean, I know for me, I remember that time. 172 00:09:28,680 --> 00:09:31,080 I was quite young as well. 173 00:09:31,080 --> 00:09:36,480 And my first experience, like in a real kind of like, you know, place where you have like 174 00:09:36,480 --> 00:09:41,840 still like big animals kind of like roaming around freely. 175 00:09:41,840 --> 00:09:45,840 And that was, you know, I have, you know, some of these situations, you know, stick 176 00:09:45,840 --> 00:09:46,840 in my brain. 177 00:09:46,840 --> 00:09:49,840 So you were happy to get to the island? 178 00:09:49,840 --> 00:09:52,480 Oh, no, I was so happy, you know. 179 00:09:52,480 --> 00:09:55,360 Yeah, I'm generally happy to arrive to the island. 180 00:09:55,360 --> 00:09:56,360 I eventually have to go back. 181 00:09:56,360 --> 00:10:00,520 Yeah, but at that time, you know, the guide or the driver of the boat was careful enough 182 00:10:00,520 --> 00:10:02,360 not to get stuck in any sandbank. 183 00:10:02,360 --> 00:10:03,360 So that was okay. 184 00:10:03,360 --> 00:10:04,360 It wasn't a long distance. 185 00:10:04,360 --> 00:10:08,760 It just happened to be, you know, very inconvenient sandbank. 186 00:10:08,760 --> 00:10:09,760 We got stuck. 187 00:10:09,760 --> 00:10:12,960 So but anyway, that was that was kind of awesome. 188 00:10:12,960 --> 00:10:14,480 I always remember that that time. 189 00:10:14,480 --> 00:10:15,480 Yeah. 190 00:10:15,480 --> 00:10:16,480 Yeah. 191 00:10:16,480 --> 00:10:17,480 So terrifying and fun. 192 00:10:17,480 --> 00:10:18,480 Yeah. 193 00:10:18,480 --> 00:10:21,160 South Africa is just a gorgeous country. 194 00:10:21,160 --> 00:10:23,040 I am looking forward to go back one day. 195 00:10:23,040 --> 00:10:24,040 Yeah, me too. 196 00:10:24,040 --> 00:10:25,040 Me too. 197 00:10:25,040 --> 00:10:27,560 I have to say, I mean, I haven't been back the only time I've been in South Africa. 198 00:10:27,560 --> 00:10:28,560 I never returned again. 199 00:10:28,560 --> 00:10:33,000 And I would love to go back there. 200 00:10:33,000 --> 00:10:34,000 It really was a great trip. 201 00:10:34,000 --> 00:10:35,000 It was a great trip, really. 202 00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:36,000 Yeah. 203 00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:39,000 But you got some spiders on the island, I imagine. 204 00:10:39,000 --> 00:10:40,000 We did. 205 00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:41,000 We did. 206 00:10:41,000 --> 00:10:43,560 And at that time, that was a kind of like general collecting. 207 00:10:43,560 --> 00:10:48,960 So I mean, which is actually not so common for me, because I mean, most of the time, 208 00:10:48,960 --> 00:10:52,840 I usually I do feel were to collect specific groups. 209 00:10:52,840 --> 00:10:56,880 You know, we are working with most of our research is actually focused in particular 210 00:10:56,880 --> 00:10:57,880 groups. 211 00:10:57,880 --> 00:10:58,880 We're trying to understand evolution of this. 212 00:10:58,880 --> 00:10:59,880 Yeah. 213 00:10:59,880 --> 00:11:00,880 There's a family of spiders. 214 00:11:00,880 --> 00:11:04,440 So most of the time we were going after something very particular. 215 00:11:04,440 --> 00:11:08,360 This particular tree was just like general collecting, you know, where a mixed group 216 00:11:08,360 --> 00:11:12,280 of technologies with different interests for myself, because I was actually that time was 217 00:11:12,280 --> 00:11:13,280 funded by the University of Hawaii. 218 00:11:13,280 --> 00:11:16,280 And I was also working in the mission museum. 219 00:11:16,280 --> 00:11:20,520 It was just an opportunity to improve their collections of spiders from different places 220 00:11:20,520 --> 00:11:21,520 in the world. 221 00:11:21,520 --> 00:11:23,480 So I was actually collecting a kind of spider. 222 00:11:23,480 --> 00:11:26,840 So it's kind of fun as well, because you get the opportunity to see a lot of different 223 00:11:26,840 --> 00:11:31,880 things, you know, most of the time, just like so focused in one particular group that I 224 00:11:31,880 --> 00:11:32,880 cannot see anything else. 225 00:11:32,880 --> 00:11:36,800 You know, I think collecting spiders, for example, in the I've done a lot of field 226 00:11:36,800 --> 00:11:41,720 work in the Canary Islands and I've been like collecting I mostly work in this family. 227 00:11:41,720 --> 00:11:45,440 So these very red devil spiders that they are ground dwellers. 228 00:11:45,440 --> 00:11:47,240 They're nocturnal, you see. 229 00:11:47,240 --> 00:11:51,160 So basically, we collect them when they are kind of hiding from light and they usually 230 00:11:51,160 --> 00:11:53,420 are under stones or under flocks. 231 00:11:53,420 --> 00:11:57,280 So most of the time, I'm just like turning stones up, you know, looking for spiders under 232 00:11:57,280 --> 00:11:58,280 stone. 233 00:11:58,280 --> 00:12:01,920 I've been in the Canary Islands with, you know, turning up stones with like big lizards, 234 00:12:01,920 --> 00:12:03,720 you know, these genus Galotea like that. 235 00:12:03,720 --> 00:12:04,720 And I couldn't see a lizard. 236 00:12:04,720 --> 00:12:06,960 I was just looking for a spider. 237 00:12:06,960 --> 00:12:12,240 I just had to go up and say, oh, there's a big lizard. 238 00:12:12,240 --> 00:12:13,240 Don't bother me with the lizard. 239 00:12:13,240 --> 00:12:14,240 I'm looking for a lizard. 240 00:12:14,240 --> 00:12:15,240 Yeah, exactly. 241 00:12:15,240 --> 00:12:16,240 Remove it. 242 00:12:16,240 --> 00:12:17,240 Yeah, remove this lizard from here. 243 00:12:17,240 --> 00:12:18,240 But yeah, yeah, yeah. 244 00:12:18,240 --> 00:12:20,920 Most of the times I actually I'm a little like that. 245 00:12:20,920 --> 00:12:23,160 I really narrow my focus a lot. 246 00:12:23,160 --> 00:12:28,880 It's amazing how the human brain can only spot particular things when you are only interested 247 00:12:28,880 --> 00:12:29,880 in these things. 248 00:12:29,880 --> 00:12:33,960 Yeah, no, if you're looking for a spider, you just walk past a snake or a lizard without 249 00:12:33,960 --> 00:12:34,960 even seeing it. 250 00:12:34,960 --> 00:12:35,960 Right. 251 00:12:35,960 --> 00:12:40,440 Well, you know, this is a funny experiment where actually they show this video to people 252 00:12:40,440 --> 00:12:41,440 where actually people are dancing. 253 00:12:41,440 --> 00:12:42,440 Oh, yeah. 254 00:12:42,440 --> 00:12:44,840 And all of a sudden a gorilla shows up and people cannot see it because, I mean, they're 255 00:12:44,840 --> 00:12:47,360 not paying attention to a gorilla and paying attention to people. 256 00:12:47,360 --> 00:12:49,520 Yeah, no, I've done that. 257 00:12:49,520 --> 00:12:50,800 I did not see the gorilla. 258 00:12:50,800 --> 00:12:51,800 No, no, no. 259 00:12:51,800 --> 00:12:52,800 Absolutely. 260 00:12:52,800 --> 00:12:57,360 So yeah, so if you only want to look for one thing, you're only going to be able to spot 261 00:12:57,360 --> 00:12:58,360 that. 262 00:12:58,360 --> 00:12:59,360 Yeah. 263 00:12:59,360 --> 00:13:01,640 And if you're bringing people in the field and they say, oh, he always finds the lizards 264 00:13:01,640 --> 00:13:02,640 and the snakes and the spiders. 265 00:13:02,640 --> 00:13:05,080 You're like, well, I can only look for one thing at a time, actually. 266 00:13:05,080 --> 00:13:06,080 No, no, absolutely. 267 00:13:06,080 --> 00:13:08,440 Sometimes people say, oh, you were collecting these things. 268 00:13:08,440 --> 00:13:09,720 Did you see this particular? 269 00:13:09,720 --> 00:13:11,760 I didn't see anything else. 270 00:13:11,760 --> 00:13:12,760 My spider, sorry. 271 00:13:12,760 --> 00:13:18,080 Oh, yeah, it's even worse with scorpions because you bring a scorpion light and they light 272 00:13:18,080 --> 00:13:19,080 up at night. 273 00:13:19,080 --> 00:13:20,080 Oh, yeah. 274 00:13:20,080 --> 00:13:21,080 Yeah, something great to have those. 275 00:13:21,080 --> 00:13:24,600 You don't have spiders, but you don't see any snakes. 276 00:13:24,600 --> 00:13:26,920 That's the problem. 277 00:13:26,920 --> 00:13:28,640 Yeah, yeah. 278 00:13:28,640 --> 00:13:31,560 I have to say I have a problem with snakes. 279 00:13:31,560 --> 00:13:32,560 Funny enough. 280 00:13:32,560 --> 00:13:34,760 I mean, you can handle anything except snakes. 281 00:13:34,760 --> 00:13:35,760 Really? 282 00:13:35,760 --> 00:13:36,760 Yeah. 283 00:13:36,760 --> 00:13:37,760 I have a very hard time with snakes. 284 00:13:37,760 --> 00:13:38,760 OK. 285 00:13:38,760 --> 00:13:39,760 Yeah. 286 00:13:39,760 --> 00:13:40,760 So yeah, I never got over that. 287 00:13:40,760 --> 00:13:41,760 I mean, I love it. 288 00:13:41,760 --> 00:13:42,760 I think they're amazing animals. 289 00:13:42,760 --> 00:13:45,760 It's just I don't like to find them. 290 00:13:45,760 --> 00:13:49,920 And again, because I'm like, you know, spending a lot of time turning stones up, it's not 291 00:13:49,920 --> 00:13:53,520 uncommon to find snakes there, you know. 292 00:13:53,520 --> 00:13:56,520 And in some places, you really don't want to find them. 293 00:13:56,520 --> 00:13:59,520 Oh, there's your archivist again. 294 00:13:59,520 --> 00:14:00,520 Awesome. 295 00:14:00,520 --> 00:14:02,920 Well, you know, you're making it sound pretty glamorous already. 296 00:14:02,920 --> 00:14:06,160 Hawaii, South Africa, Canary Islands. 297 00:14:06,160 --> 00:14:09,000 That's not bad. 298 00:14:09,000 --> 00:14:10,000 What can I offer you now? 299 00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:11,000 OK, that was it. 300 00:14:11,000 --> 00:14:12,000 That was the other story. 301 00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:20,000 And that was actually a little bit more, unless, not so good memory, I have to say. 302 00:14:20,000 --> 00:14:24,880 So this time we were in Turkey. 303 00:14:24,880 --> 00:14:29,800 That was 2006, I reckon. 304 00:14:29,800 --> 00:14:35,840 And again, we were joining this party of people who were actually doing mostly caves. 305 00:14:35,840 --> 00:14:41,080 But at that time, I was telling you before, I was in this group of this family of spiders, 306 00:14:41,080 --> 00:14:42,080 the red devils. 307 00:14:42,080 --> 00:14:44,400 These are the most Mediterranean families. 308 00:14:44,400 --> 00:14:46,600 I didn't try to collect them all over. 309 00:14:46,600 --> 00:14:50,720 So I joined these people because actually they had the permit to collect in Turkey, 310 00:14:50,720 --> 00:14:54,760 especially around the Black Sea coast in the northern part of Anatolia. 311 00:14:54,760 --> 00:15:00,400 So it was at that time, it was not such an easy place to go and it was difficult to get 312 00:15:00,400 --> 00:15:01,400 the permit. 313 00:15:01,400 --> 00:15:03,640 So I was happy to be able to join these people. 314 00:15:03,640 --> 00:15:10,160 So we actually, we organized this trip and we were basically driving from Istanbul towards 315 00:15:10,160 --> 00:15:19,200 Ankara and we just crossed the strait and they were on the way to Anatolia. 316 00:15:19,200 --> 00:15:24,240 And then we said to go to this place where some of the people were supposed to do caving. 317 00:15:24,240 --> 00:15:26,880 So I was actually collecting outside. 318 00:15:26,880 --> 00:15:33,200 And again, I was doing my work thing, going around, turning up stones, big stones. 319 00:15:33,200 --> 00:15:36,760 And this particular one, we were about to leave. 320 00:15:36,760 --> 00:15:41,960 So somebody said that he had enough, so he said, okay, guys, let's go to the next place. 321 00:15:41,960 --> 00:15:44,680 And of course, I had to turn up the very last stone. 322 00:15:44,680 --> 00:15:46,160 There was a huge stone. 323 00:15:46,160 --> 00:15:51,200 So I went there, I started to try to turn this thing up. 324 00:15:51,200 --> 00:15:55,960 And all of a sudden, it was so heavy that it fell on me. 325 00:15:55,960 --> 00:16:03,640 Luckily, I was right at the border of an embankment, like a steep downhill. 326 00:16:03,640 --> 00:16:08,560 And me and the stone, we both go down rolling. 327 00:16:08,560 --> 00:16:09,560 And that was amazing. 328 00:16:09,560 --> 00:16:13,960 I was feeling like, you know, these cartoons of the wild coyote and the road runner. 329 00:16:13,960 --> 00:16:14,960 It was basically like that. 330 00:16:14,960 --> 00:16:15,960 I was feeling like the wild coyote. 331 00:16:15,960 --> 00:16:18,960 I mean, what's going down with the stone? 332 00:16:18,960 --> 00:16:22,800 Literally, I couldn't get, I mean, remove the stone from me. 333 00:16:22,800 --> 00:16:25,360 We were like one single unit going down the hill. 334 00:16:25,360 --> 00:16:26,360 Yeah. 335 00:16:26,360 --> 00:16:29,760 It felt like I was falling for like hundreds of meters, probably was just like three or 336 00:16:29,760 --> 00:16:30,760 four meters. 337 00:16:30,760 --> 00:16:34,760 But I mean, you know, at that time, the time really goes very, very slowly. 338 00:16:34,760 --> 00:16:38,680 And unfortunately, at the very end, we were right at the base of the hill. 339 00:16:38,680 --> 00:16:41,800 I mean, the stone just fell into my hand, my left hand. 340 00:16:41,800 --> 00:16:44,520 And kind of squashed it. 341 00:16:44,520 --> 00:16:45,760 Yeah. 342 00:16:45,760 --> 00:16:51,200 And two of my fingers, little finger on the next one, they literally opened like, you 343 00:16:51,200 --> 00:16:53,640 know, like a banana, like peeling a banana. 344 00:16:53,640 --> 00:16:56,640 You could see the bone. 345 00:16:56,640 --> 00:17:01,080 So it was not a very nice view. 346 00:17:01,080 --> 00:17:08,520 So luckily, one of the guys in this group of people, he was trained like in first aid. 347 00:17:08,520 --> 00:17:11,120 And he basically, you know, and he was amazing. 348 00:17:11,120 --> 00:17:15,480 Actually, he kind of like calmed me down because I was getting a little bit anxious. 349 00:17:15,480 --> 00:17:21,000 So he basically wrapped up the fingers. 350 00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:25,760 Just imagine the guy was cold enough to actually find my nail because one of the nails fell 351 00:17:25,760 --> 00:17:26,760 down. 352 00:17:26,760 --> 00:17:27,760 He collected the nail as well. 353 00:17:27,760 --> 00:17:30,760 So he wrapped the whole thing in. 354 00:17:30,760 --> 00:17:33,720 And yeah, and we were like in the middle of nowhere. 355 00:17:33,720 --> 00:17:35,840 I mean, the thing was like bleeding like hell. 356 00:17:35,840 --> 00:17:39,920 We were in the middle of nowhere and we were about like three hours drive from Ankara. 357 00:17:39,920 --> 00:17:44,680 So basically, the guy said, okay, I mean, we go straight to Ankara because, you know, 358 00:17:44,680 --> 00:17:48,640 that really looks nasty and you better find like a good hospital, you know, to take care 359 00:17:48,640 --> 00:17:49,640 of that. 360 00:17:49,640 --> 00:17:50,640 So basically, we start driving. 361 00:17:50,640 --> 00:17:57,600 At that time, I was like basically hallucinating because I lost a lot of blood, of course. 362 00:17:57,600 --> 00:18:01,120 But then the guy said just by the way we were, I mean, while we were driving, they called 363 00:18:01,120 --> 00:18:03,480 to the Spanish embassy in Ankara. 364 00:18:03,480 --> 00:18:05,840 We were all a party of Spanish people. 365 00:18:05,840 --> 00:18:11,240 And the Spanish embassy looked for a clinic, a hospital who was specialized on hand. 366 00:18:11,240 --> 00:18:12,240 I mean, can you imagine? 367 00:18:12,240 --> 00:18:18,360 I mean, there was this hospital which actually specialized in taking care of hand accidents. 368 00:18:18,360 --> 00:18:19,360 So we went straight there. 369 00:18:19,360 --> 00:18:21,680 Turned up the doctor there. 370 00:18:21,680 --> 00:18:22,680 Just came back from Barcelona. 371 00:18:22,680 --> 00:18:25,480 So the guy was fairly in love with the city. 372 00:18:25,480 --> 00:18:28,640 So he really gave me a very good, he treated me very well. 373 00:18:28,640 --> 00:18:34,960 And yeah, we just arrived there and we went straight to the surgery room. 374 00:18:34,960 --> 00:18:41,520 And then I got like the full, I mean, I got sleep completely. 375 00:18:41,520 --> 00:18:47,320 That was the only time in my life actually I got the full anesthesia. 376 00:18:47,320 --> 00:18:50,520 And then yeah, I mean, they kind of fixed the two fingers. 377 00:18:50,520 --> 00:18:51,520 They put the nail back actually. 378 00:18:51,520 --> 00:18:52,520 The guy was especially interested in the nails. 379 00:18:52,520 --> 00:18:57,400 It turned out to be a good thing because he told me that without the nail, it's difficult 380 00:18:57,400 --> 00:18:58,400 to regrow the nail. 381 00:18:58,400 --> 00:19:00,400 So you have to have the nail fixed. 382 00:19:00,400 --> 00:19:04,800 Actually, the cell at the bottom of it, they can regrow finally. 383 00:19:04,800 --> 00:19:12,360 So yeah, he actually, the two fingers, they kind of like put them back in the right place. 384 00:19:12,360 --> 00:19:14,400 I was there for a couple of days. 385 00:19:14,400 --> 00:19:15,400 Yeah. 386 00:19:15,400 --> 00:19:16,400 And yeah. 387 00:19:16,400 --> 00:19:20,440 So, and after that, I spent two weeks collecting there with one hand only. 388 00:19:20,440 --> 00:19:23,400 So I had, I need somebody who helped me to turn up the stones. 389 00:19:23,400 --> 00:19:24,400 Oh yeah. 390 00:19:24,400 --> 00:19:25,400 Yeah. 391 00:19:25,400 --> 00:19:26,400 I was there. 392 00:19:26,400 --> 00:19:27,400 You went right back into the field after that. 393 00:19:27,400 --> 00:19:28,400 Oh yes. 394 00:19:28,400 --> 00:19:29,400 Yeah. 395 00:19:29,400 --> 00:19:30,400 After two days, we were back to the field. 396 00:19:30,400 --> 00:19:31,400 Yeah. 397 00:19:31,400 --> 00:19:35,040 And I was there for like some first aid. 398 00:19:35,040 --> 00:19:40,960 Well, basically I had to go like every two days to some hospital to clean up and kind 399 00:19:40,960 --> 00:19:41,960 of like revise the stitches. 400 00:19:41,960 --> 00:19:42,960 And that was great. 401 00:19:42,960 --> 00:19:49,680 I have to say, I mean, at that time, I really come to admire the health system in Turkey 402 00:19:49,680 --> 00:19:53,840 because I mean, any place we went, everything was kind of like subsidized by the states. 403 00:19:53,840 --> 00:19:54,840 It was free. 404 00:19:54,840 --> 00:19:55,840 It was also free for foreignness. 405 00:19:55,840 --> 00:19:57,840 So I really got the best treatment. 406 00:19:57,840 --> 00:20:03,040 But yeah, that was one of the, I mean, I have to say, I'm going to talk truth here, but 407 00:20:03,040 --> 00:20:07,200 that was the only serious accident I've had in the field. 408 00:20:07,200 --> 00:20:12,080 And I was lucky enough to keep like, you know, cleaning and collecting afterwards. 409 00:20:12,080 --> 00:20:13,080 Yeah. 410 00:20:13,080 --> 00:20:14,080 I mean, falling with a big rock. 411 00:20:14,080 --> 00:20:15,080 I mean, it could have landed anywhere, right? 412 00:20:15,080 --> 00:20:16,080 Your hand is... 413 00:20:16,080 --> 00:20:17,080 No, no, absolutely. 414 00:20:17,080 --> 00:20:18,080 ... but your head is a little bit... 415 00:20:18,080 --> 00:20:19,080 Absolutely. 416 00:20:19,080 --> 00:20:22,160 And on the top of that, I was lucky because at that time I was actually wearing several 417 00:20:22,160 --> 00:20:24,040 rings, like big rings. 418 00:20:24,040 --> 00:20:30,720 And actually, two of them, no, actually the one in the second finger, I mean, it was completely 419 00:20:30,720 --> 00:20:31,720 squashed. 420 00:20:31,720 --> 00:20:32,720 It actually probably saved the finger. 421 00:20:32,720 --> 00:20:33,720 I still keep the ring. 422 00:20:33,720 --> 00:20:38,280 I should make something like a necklace or something of that. 423 00:20:38,280 --> 00:20:42,160 It's completely squashed, but it was, yeah, that was a favor. 424 00:20:42,160 --> 00:20:44,920 So yeah, that was one of the down stories I have. 425 00:20:44,920 --> 00:20:49,400 No, no, it's good to know that things like this happen. 426 00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:53,160 The fact that you just went straight back to the field after that. 427 00:20:53,160 --> 00:20:55,600 Some people would go home, Michele, I think. 428 00:20:55,600 --> 00:20:56,600 Yeah. 429 00:20:56,600 --> 00:20:57,600 I don't know. 430 00:20:57,600 --> 00:20:58,600 I mean, I at that time, and I'm still like that. 431 00:20:58,600 --> 00:21:05,040 I mean, so I'm so getting to that, I mean, to the field, but it's both in terms of the 432 00:21:05,040 --> 00:21:09,480 nature that I love, but also of the places. 433 00:21:09,480 --> 00:21:13,800 One thing that really motivates me to go to the field, it's also the cultural part of 434 00:21:13,800 --> 00:21:14,800 it. 435 00:21:14,800 --> 00:21:19,000 So especially because I've been doing a lot of sampling in the Mediterranean, I really 436 00:21:19,000 --> 00:21:23,360 love this mix of nature, but also culture, kind of ancient remains, gastronomy. 437 00:21:23,360 --> 00:21:27,120 Yeah, there's a lot of old culture around the Mediterranean, right? 438 00:21:27,120 --> 00:21:28,120 Yeah, absolutely. 439 00:21:28,120 --> 00:21:29,920 And that really motivates me a lot. 440 00:21:29,920 --> 00:21:33,800 And at that time, Turkey is always a place that I have been obsessed with. 441 00:21:33,800 --> 00:21:35,760 I really love it. 442 00:21:35,760 --> 00:21:39,080 And that was the opportunity to go to the Black Sea coast, which is not so visited. 443 00:21:39,080 --> 00:21:40,080 We went to Cepsand. 444 00:21:40,080 --> 00:21:45,040 Some of the places where as a kid, when I was reading books, travel books, always wanted 445 00:21:45,040 --> 00:21:46,040 to go. 446 00:21:46,040 --> 00:21:51,600 So yeah, that kind of like actually pushed me to keep doing the fieldwork even after 447 00:21:51,600 --> 00:21:52,600 the accident. 448 00:21:52,600 --> 00:21:53,600 Oh, wow. 449 00:21:53,600 --> 00:21:54,600 Wow. 450 00:21:54,600 --> 00:21:57,040 Well, you may be pushing me to go to Turkey too, because I've never been and it sounds 451 00:21:57,040 --> 00:21:58,040 like... 452 00:21:58,040 --> 00:21:59,040 Oh, you should definitely go there. 453 00:21:59,040 --> 00:22:04,800 I mean, I will say, yeah, if I get lost, just go and look for me in Turkey. 454 00:22:04,800 --> 00:22:05,800 Right. 455 00:22:05,800 --> 00:22:07,840 I still love it even after, yeah. 456 00:22:07,840 --> 00:22:09,880 Part of Turkey crushed your hand. 457 00:22:09,880 --> 00:22:10,880 Yeah, exactly. 458 00:22:10,880 --> 00:22:11,880 Well, you know, they're not responsible. 459 00:22:11,880 --> 00:22:17,840 Actually, the only thing that's funny is that my little finger is kind of like pointy at 460 00:22:17,840 --> 00:22:20,840 the end now, but other than that, it's okay. 461 00:22:20,840 --> 00:22:21,840 Yeah. 462 00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:23,840 Even as a nail on it. 463 00:22:23,840 --> 00:22:24,840 Right. 464 00:22:24,840 --> 00:22:25,840 It'll still happen. 465 00:22:25,840 --> 00:22:26,840 Yeah. 466 00:22:26,840 --> 00:22:27,840 Awesome. 467 00:22:27,840 --> 00:22:30,000 Well, yeah, that's a good one. 468 00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:35,280 I mean, I haven't heard many, many that serious incidents with rocks. 469 00:22:35,280 --> 00:22:39,800 I mean, people always drop a rock on their foot or something or scratch your leg or something. 470 00:22:39,800 --> 00:22:40,800 Wow. 471 00:22:40,800 --> 00:22:45,000 Yeah, I guess it's one of the downsides of working with spiders that have the habit of 472 00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:46,000 hiding under rocks. 473 00:22:46,000 --> 00:22:47,000 Scorpions too. 474 00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:48,000 Yeah. 475 00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:49,000 I have the right, yeah. 476 00:22:49,000 --> 00:22:55,200 But you guys take advantage of the fact that they at night, you can see them and spot them 477 00:22:55,200 --> 00:22:57,760 at night and then for the time they are moving around. 478 00:22:57,760 --> 00:22:58,760 So that's good. 479 00:22:58,760 --> 00:22:59,760 Yeah. 480 00:22:59,760 --> 00:23:01,760 It's also the more pleasant time to be around in those hot countries. 481 00:23:01,760 --> 00:23:02,760 Absolutely. 482 00:23:02,760 --> 00:23:03,760 Yeah, absolutely. 483 00:23:03,760 --> 00:23:05,600 Do you also have the effect... 484 00:23:05,600 --> 00:23:08,000 In the beginning, we were doing field work without gloves. 485 00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:11,640 And then after a couple of days of turning sharp rocks, you have no more fingerprints, 486 00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:12,640 right? 487 00:23:12,640 --> 00:23:13,640 No, absolutely. 488 00:23:13,640 --> 00:23:14,640 Well, that's absolutely right. 489 00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:18,640 I mean, I've been trying then to use my fingers to open my phone. 490 00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:21,640 You know, at the time, they actually were using that and you cannot. 491 00:23:21,640 --> 00:23:24,640 I mean, just basically you lose all the fingerprints. 492 00:23:24,640 --> 00:23:25,640 That's absolutely right. 493 00:23:25,640 --> 00:23:26,640 Yeah. 494 00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:27,640 Yeah. 495 00:23:27,640 --> 00:23:28,640 And now we use gloves all the time. 496 00:23:28,640 --> 00:23:29,640 That's much better. 497 00:23:29,640 --> 00:23:30,640 Makes sense. 498 00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:31,640 Makes sense. 499 00:23:31,640 --> 00:23:32,640 Yeah. 500 00:23:32,640 --> 00:23:35,040 I mean, I think that when you're younger, I mean, you feel like nothing can destroy you. 501 00:23:35,040 --> 00:23:36,520 So you really don't care about anything. 502 00:23:36,520 --> 00:23:38,720 You know, you get older and you have more experience. 503 00:23:38,720 --> 00:23:39,720 Okay, no, no, no, no. 504 00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:40,720 I'm not going to go for that. 505 00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:43,720 You know, I have to keep what is left of myself. 506 00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:46,440 I have to take good care of. 507 00:23:46,440 --> 00:23:47,440 Awesome. 508 00:23:47,440 --> 00:23:48,440 Awesome. 509 00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:51,520 And yeah, so it's mostly around the Mediterranean. 510 00:23:51,520 --> 00:23:58,160 And have you ever gone to any tropical countries for the spiders or is that... 511 00:23:58,160 --> 00:23:59,160 We did quite a bit of work. 512 00:23:59,160 --> 00:24:02,160 We had this project in Panama, actually. 513 00:24:02,160 --> 00:24:06,720 That was in 2008 and 2009. 514 00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:11,160 We did a couple of expeditions to the cloud forest in Panama. 515 00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:14,800 And that was, yeah, that was quite an amazing experience. 516 00:24:14,800 --> 00:24:21,360 That's really been together with South Africa, the northern parts of South Africa that was 517 00:24:21,360 --> 00:24:22,720 getting a little more tropical. 518 00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:27,240 That was, you know, one of the only tropical places where I've been doing like, let's say, 519 00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:29,040 professional collection of spiders. 520 00:24:29,040 --> 00:24:33,880 And that was amazing, you know, the cloud forest in Panama is really crazy. 521 00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:40,240 Panama, I have to say, has some of the best preserved tropical forest in Latin America, 522 00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:42,440 Central America, for sure. 523 00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:48,080 And especially because of the Panama Canal, so they have to preserve all the watershed 524 00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:54,920 around the canal because actually the water they get to fill it up comes from the watershed. 525 00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:57,680 So they have to preserve all the forest around. 526 00:24:57,680 --> 00:25:02,120 At all in that, even like going all the mountain range, the dorsal range going up to Costa 527 00:25:02,120 --> 00:25:06,600 Rica, you know, the mountain cloud forest is very well preserved. 528 00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:09,640 So that was an amazing place to collect. 529 00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:16,840 Yeah, we did, in this case, we did some standardized collecting because we wanted to compare the 530 00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:18,360 spider communities in four different spots. 531 00:25:18,360 --> 00:25:25,920 So we actually have this kind of, you know, transect in four spots along the Cordillera 532 00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:32,440 going from La Campana, which is more or less close to the canal, all the way close to the 533 00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:38,360 border with Costa Rica and the National Park Lamixtat, which is a share park between the 534 00:25:38,360 --> 00:25:39,880 two countries. 535 00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:44,040 And then we had like these four spots where basically we had this four spots that had 536 00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:47,420 plots of 100 by 100 by 1 hectare plots. 537 00:25:47,420 --> 00:25:53,440 And we did continuous collecting for, I don't know, altogether, it was like, we were like 538 00:25:53,440 --> 00:25:56,920 six people collecting for five hours a day for three days. 539 00:25:56,920 --> 00:25:58,520 So we had a lot of collecting. 540 00:25:58,520 --> 00:25:59,520 Yeah. 541 00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:03,040 So the idea was basically having like a complete inventory of the spider community there. 542 00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:08,320 And that was a place that we had some like bad encounters with like serious snakes there. 543 00:26:08,320 --> 00:26:09,320 Yeah. 544 00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:10,800 So that was quite scary. 545 00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:12,120 That's your favorite. 546 00:26:12,120 --> 00:26:13,120 Yeah. 547 00:26:13,120 --> 00:26:18,160 But other than that, that was a great experience. 548 00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:22,240 One of the places actually I love, I really like, and I've been lucky enough to visit 549 00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:24,920 several times and that's going back to the island. 550 00:26:24,920 --> 00:26:28,880 It's Juan Fernandez Archipelago. 551 00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:29,880 Where is that? 552 00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:33,360 That's, this is off the coast of Chile. 553 00:26:33,360 --> 00:26:35,160 It's right in front of Valparaiso. 554 00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:36,640 Not far from Santiago. 555 00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:37,640 Yeah. 556 00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:45,080 It's about like a 300, 250 kilometers into the sea from Valparaiso. 557 00:26:45,080 --> 00:26:52,960 And these are mainly two islands, Robinson Crusoe and Alejandro Selkirk, which in the 558 00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:53,960 tournament, actually quite far apart. 559 00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:58,440 I mean, I think they are the closest to the continent, which is Robinson Crusoe. 560 00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:00,360 It's about 250 kilometers. 561 00:27:00,360 --> 00:27:03,720 And then the two of them are separated by another 200 kilometers. 562 00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:05,920 I mean, it's not really too close. 563 00:27:05,920 --> 00:27:09,320 A close archipelago is more like two islands, more or less isolated. 564 00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:10,320 And these are volcanic islands. 565 00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:11,320 Yeah, yeah. 566 00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:12,320 These are volcanic islands as well. 567 00:27:12,320 --> 00:27:19,760 I think Robinson Crusoe is about 3.5 million and Selkirk is 1 million. 568 00:27:19,760 --> 00:27:24,040 And since 2000, we started there. 569 00:27:24,040 --> 00:27:29,840 That's a project I've been doing in collaboration with my good friend, Gustavo Ormiga, who is 570 00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:30,840 an alphanat agnologist. 571 00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:35,800 He's also, he was born in Spain, but he has done most of his career actually in the States. 572 00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:37,800 He's a professor at the George Washington University. 573 00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:41,800 And we've done a lot of state work together and we had shared some projects. 574 00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:46,400 And we started this project in Juan Fernandez in 2012, I think. 575 00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:51,360 And it's basically about the evolution of this group of spiders. 576 00:27:51,360 --> 00:27:52,360 They are linifids. 577 00:27:52,360 --> 00:27:53,360 They are dwarf spiders. 578 00:27:53,360 --> 00:27:54,360 Yeah. 579 00:27:54,360 --> 00:27:55,360 They are all over. 580 00:27:55,360 --> 00:28:01,440 I guess it's the most diverse spider family in terms of number of species and probably 581 00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:02,440 also genera. 582 00:28:02,440 --> 00:28:03,440 They're all over. 583 00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:08,440 But this particular group, the Rigonites, they managed to colonize the archipelagos 584 00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:12,360 and they underwent in Vargana an amazing radiation. 585 00:28:12,360 --> 00:28:14,880 So we basically wanted to study this group. 586 00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:19,360 So starting in 2012, we have been visiting the islands, I think, four times already. 587 00:28:19,360 --> 00:28:20,360 Okay. 588 00:28:20,360 --> 00:28:23,000 And also Chile to look for other groups. 589 00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:28,680 So actually, we just went to Chile, to the southern part of Chile, last, when was that, 590 00:28:28,680 --> 00:28:30,760 in February, February, March. 591 00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:31,760 That was great. 592 00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:32,760 That's amazing. 593 00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:33,760 That's another amazing place, Chile. 594 00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:38,040 But these islands in particular are, you know, are quite an experience. 595 00:28:38,040 --> 00:28:41,680 I would say it's both a natural and sociological experience, you know, because, I mean, they 596 00:28:41,680 --> 00:28:42,680 are remote. 597 00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:43,680 There's only one village. 598 00:28:43,680 --> 00:28:49,240 All the people that live there is in one single village in this Robinson Crusoe. 599 00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:51,680 And in the other island, there is no permanent village. 600 00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:53,800 There's only a temporal village. 601 00:28:53,800 --> 00:29:00,760 I think during eight months a year, the inhabitants of Robinson Crusoe are allowed to go to Selkirk, 602 00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:03,600 basically to fish a lobster. 603 00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:09,520 But I mean, the whole economy of the islands is based on lobster fishing. 604 00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:13,680 And they actually deliver to restaurants all over, actually alive. 605 00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:16,200 They mostly send them to Japan. 606 00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:17,200 Okay. 607 00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:18,200 Yeah. 608 00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:21,240 So the whole economy of the place is based on these lobsters. 609 00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:25,440 So basically, 85% of the people, I guess, is fishing lobsters. 610 00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:27,680 And the rest of the people are just providing services for them. 611 00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:28,680 So it's quite a place. 612 00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:29,680 It's quite a place. 613 00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:30,680 It's difficult to arrive there. 614 00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:37,120 But still, there's a regular flight to Robinson Crusoe, but it's super expensive. 615 00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:38,240 So it's not... 616 00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:41,920 And when you're there, you're really quite isolated because after this, there's not a 617 00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:45,240 whole lot of tourism because it's very expensive and there are not so many things to do. 618 00:29:45,240 --> 00:29:47,040 But the place is really incredible. 619 00:29:47,040 --> 00:29:48,040 Yeah. 620 00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:49,040 Small, tiny island. 621 00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:50,040 Yeah. 622 00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:51,040 And then going to Selkirk. 623 00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:52,040 Yeah, yeah. 624 00:29:52,040 --> 00:29:57,680 It's not remote in terms of how far it is because Hawaii is much far away from everything 625 00:29:57,680 --> 00:29:58,680 else. 626 00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:01,920 So it makes you really feel you are in the middle of nowhere because it's more difficult 627 00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:02,920 to arrive. 628 00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:08,000 And again, I mean, there's flights going to Robinson, but to go to Selkirk, you basically 629 00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:15,920 have to rely either on some fishing boat that goes there or there is one merchant boat, a 630 00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:20,160 big ship that goes once a month to provide supplies for these people. 631 00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:21,160 Okay. 632 00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:22,160 So it's quite a challenge. 633 00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:26,120 And actually, we've been there four or five times, but we only managed to go to Selkirk 634 00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:31,480 twice and that was basically like, you know, a convincing from fisherman to take us there. 635 00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:36,760 But going with a fishing boat, it takes you about eight to nine hours to go to the island. 636 00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:38,800 It's an overnight. 637 00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:42,040 And you know, yeah, we have a lot of stories of basically, you know, going through, you 638 00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:46,640 know, from one island to the other in these eight hours, like basically, you know, as 639 00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:50,360 my colleague was always saying, feeding the fishes because basically you start like vomiting 640 00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:54,080 after five minutes, maybe that you are there, moving up and down. 641 00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:58,080 And then you try to sleep and it's pretty impossible and you have to go down to the 642 00:30:58,080 --> 00:31:05,520 to well, this one room used for, you know, to sleep and also to store stuff, to put lobsters. 643 00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:09,480 So it's not the perfect spot to have a proper nap. 644 00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:12,280 But anyway, it's quite a, it's got an experience. 645 00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:13,280 Yeah. 646 00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:14,280 Yeah. 647 00:31:14,280 --> 00:31:18,880 Well, actually, when we're going towards there, they are typically what they do is they go 648 00:31:18,880 --> 00:31:25,920 to the Selkirk island to load the lobsters and then go back to deliver them by plane. 649 00:31:25,920 --> 00:31:29,120 But that was this, this the first time I actually went to Selkirk. 650 00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:33,280 That's an amazing place because the island is as big as the other one, but basically 651 00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:38,120 it's only these temple village, which probably about 200 people or more than that. 652 00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:39,720 And the whole island is empty. 653 00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:43,360 So basically it's only like people from the village can spend, you know, what they like 654 00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:47,000 to do when they are not fishing, when they have some free time, where they go, they go 655 00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:50,560 up to the mountains to chase, to hunt goats. 656 00:31:50,560 --> 00:31:51,560 Okay. 657 00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:58,120 So interestingly, these goats, which are also a pest, because basically they are eating 658 00:31:58,120 --> 00:31:59,120 everything there. 659 00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:00,120 Yeah. 660 00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:04,720 They were introduced, so basically the islands were discovered by this Portuguese sailor, 661 00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:10,440 but I see here they were working by the Spanish Armada. 662 00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:14,760 So they discovered these islands and basically the Spaniards, the colonizadores, they were 663 00:32:14,760 --> 00:32:21,720 using this island as a stepping stone to go from Chile towards Peru. 664 00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:25,600 And basically what they did, and that's something they used to do commonly with these islands, 665 00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:32,040 and they were not very interested in colonizing, is they free forks, they free goats to have 666 00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:33,800 food, fresh food when they come. 667 00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:34,800 Exactly. 668 00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:35,800 Yeah. 669 00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:36,800 So that was the reason of these goats. 670 00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:42,000 And by the way, that's very interesting, it turns out these goats belong to a breed 671 00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:43,960 that is already here in Spain. 672 00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:47,880 So in a way they also have some kind of conservation interest and cultural interest. 673 00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:48,880 Yeah. 674 00:32:48,880 --> 00:32:54,400 But there's been a lot of NGOs, conservation NGOs, have been trying to get rid of the goats, 675 00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:58,000 because they're basically eating all the endemic vegetables. 676 00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:02,000 But then you get in conflict with the local people, because for the local people, culturally 677 00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:06,000 speaking, the goats are important because hunting goats is like a big thing. 678 00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:07,000 Okay. 679 00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:08,000 Yeah. 680 00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:09,000 It's exactly the same situation in Hawaii. 681 00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:11,600 When I was in Hawaii, it's the same habit with the wild pigs. 682 00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:18,000 They had these pigs, the pigs went feral, they're basically introducing all kinds of 683 00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:22,160 introduced plants into the forest, because they eat the plants and they eat poop in the 684 00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:25,040 forest and then you have all the seeds. 685 00:33:25,040 --> 00:33:28,680 And they're trying to control the population and then the locals, they want to even hear 686 00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:32,520 about getting rid of the pork, because part of the culture has to do with hunting the 687 00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:33,520 pork. 688 00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:35,520 In the case of Juan Fernandez, they go. 689 00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:38,400 But anyway, we went to these two circuits. 690 00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:43,960 So we're going with people from the CONAF, which is the governmental agency that takes 691 00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:44,960 care of conservation. 692 00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:48,960 So the rangers actually were helping us there and providing guidance for the... 693 00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:51,960 Because they are not really kind of trails, basically. 694 00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:56,320 So you walk around places that people know more or less where to go to. 695 00:33:56,320 --> 00:33:59,960 I went to go up to the mountain to do some collecting up there. 696 00:33:59,960 --> 00:34:04,640 So I went with this guy and we were basically walking up, because basically that's just 697 00:34:04,640 --> 00:34:06,640 a mountain, it's a big volcano. 698 00:34:06,640 --> 00:34:08,920 So you have to keep walking and going up. 699 00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:15,000 And at a certain point, we decided to stop in this place and to put together the tent 700 00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:18,360 to spend the night there, because we were doing night collecting. 701 00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:21,480 And the time say, okay, well, I'm going to leave you here, guys, you do your stuff and 702 00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:22,880 I'm going to go and take a walk. 703 00:34:22,880 --> 00:34:28,400 Well, the guy was carrying a rifle, of course, so the guy went to hunt for goats. 704 00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:34,560 So off he goes, we were standing there, again, mounting the tent and doing some collecting. 705 00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:42,160 And after a couple of shots, and after an hour or so, the guy shows up with two goats 706 00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:48,480 kind of like hide up, dead, lying on his shoulders, coming to us. 707 00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:51,760 And the guy is like, do you guys have some knife or something? 708 00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:54,640 And my colleague with that was, he had like a Swiss army knife. 709 00:34:54,640 --> 00:34:55,640 I said, yeah, I have that. 710 00:34:55,640 --> 00:34:56,640 Oh yeah, sure, no problem. 711 00:34:56,640 --> 00:35:01,520 He takes the guy, gets one of the goats, he hangs the goat from a tree and he skins the 712 00:35:01,520 --> 00:35:05,680 goat with a freaking jacket. 713 00:35:05,680 --> 00:35:07,800 We were like in shock, like, no kidding me. 714 00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:10,800 I mean, you leave me here with a goat, I wouldn't know what to do with that. 715 00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:16,480 So the guy just like, you know, kind of skin the goat, remove everything, remove all the 716 00:35:16,480 --> 00:35:17,480 cleaning. 717 00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:21,240 I put a symbiosis there because by the time he was doing that, there were a couple of 718 00:35:21,240 --> 00:35:23,440 endemic hawks on the island. 719 00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:26,120 You know, they were already sitting there, you know, waiting because they know that, 720 00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:30,040 you know, the hunters are going to remove the internal organs, you know, they're going 721 00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:32,560 to throw them away, so they actually are feeding on that. 722 00:35:32,560 --> 00:35:38,880 Yeah, the guy got the goat ready prepared the next day when we walked down, he actually 723 00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:42,040 was scaring the skinned goat. 724 00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:46,840 The next day we actually took the fishing boat back, the guy with his hat, and in the 725 00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:50,800 middle of nowhere, I mean, the middle of the sea, he actually prepared a barbecue and he 726 00:35:50,800 --> 00:35:51,800 barbecued the goat. 727 00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:53,800 So that was our lunch for the next day. 728 00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:58,320 Yeah, so that was quite an experience. 729 00:35:58,320 --> 00:36:00,760 I imagine it was a very good goat. 730 00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:03,040 Oh, no, that was actually amazing. 731 00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:09,920 You know, I mean, you have to feel sorry about that, but you know, that was, but I was saying 732 00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:14,440 you before that part of this, of this, I'm going to call it cultural, but social experience, 733 00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:16,240 you know, you go through that. 734 00:36:16,240 --> 00:36:22,040 I mean, because as a urbanized, because, you know, I was born and grew up in a big city 735 00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:26,880 and when you have these opportunities, I mean, really, I mean, if you imagine yourself, you 736 00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:31,320 get maroon in an island and you know, the only thing you have is like a machete, let's 737 00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:33,760 say, and you have to provide food for yourself. 738 00:36:33,760 --> 00:36:34,760 We will be so helpless. 739 00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:35,760 I will be so helpless. 740 00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:39,760 And this guy was skinning a freaking goat with a Swiss army knife. 741 00:36:39,760 --> 00:36:42,160 Yeah, which is a tiny little knife like that. 742 00:36:42,160 --> 00:36:46,680 Yeah, providing, you know, so you really, you know, you have to survive, but you really 743 00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:48,720 feel like, you know, you don't belong there. 744 00:36:48,720 --> 00:36:53,280 I mean, you just, you do that two hours in any of these places. 745 00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:54,280 That is very cool to see, right? 746 00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:57,080 That people can still live like that. 747 00:36:57,080 --> 00:36:58,080 Oh, yeah. 748 00:36:58,080 --> 00:36:59,080 Yeah. 749 00:36:59,080 --> 00:37:01,680 I mean, I'm talking, I mean, these people have, you know, I mean, all the commodities 750 00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:06,520 where they are, but I mean, they know, they know their, you know, their surrounding, they 751 00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:11,240 know the nature, they know how to provide food and stuff. 752 00:37:11,240 --> 00:37:13,240 Again, that was quite amazing. 753 00:37:13,240 --> 00:37:15,760 It was another very nice story. 754 00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:20,160 And then just to change a little bit of the perspective, it also has to do with this kind 755 00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:22,200 of connection, you know, with the past. 756 00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:26,760 So basically some of the, of the collecting we're doing in these islands were basically 757 00:37:26,760 --> 00:37:34,520 following the track, following the, the places that were visited in the fifties by this guy. 758 00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:36,320 He was called Boris Malkin. 759 00:37:36,320 --> 00:37:37,320 Okay. 760 00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:40,880 He was a guy born in Hungary. 761 00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:48,440 And during the fifties, sixties, he was hired by the American Museum as a professional collector. 762 00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:53,400 So basically the guy would go to places funded by the American Museum to collect, you know, 763 00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:54,400 everything. 764 00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:58,440 He was mostly focused on bugs and insects mostly, but he did a lot of spider collection. 765 00:37:58,440 --> 00:38:05,640 So some of the actually pieces that we were after were collected by him in the fifties. 766 00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:08,920 And they were, I mean, they were stored at the American Museum and then somebody else 767 00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:14,400 in the seventies, no, in the nineties, early nineties, actually, still there, I mean, the 768 00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:18,720 first species and that was how we started to get into that. 769 00:38:18,720 --> 00:38:21,840 But this guy wasn't like a hero for us, you know, because all the time we were like, oh, 770 00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:25,600 we have to go to this locality that Boris visited. 771 00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:29,600 And you have to think, I mean, I'm the fifties to go into this particular place. 772 00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:32,760 It takes you like, even if it's small tiny islands, it will take you like a day to go 773 00:38:32,760 --> 00:38:38,080 there because you have to go up and down volcanoes, you know, cross for like very deep forest, 774 00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:39,080 very steep places. 775 00:38:39,080 --> 00:38:42,080 And we, I mean, this guy is our freaking hero. 776 00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:46,240 So I know we were in this fell kick again in Thailand and we were attacking with some 777 00:38:46,240 --> 00:38:50,920 of the fishermen and some of the guys all the time say, oh no, I saw that. 778 00:38:50,920 --> 00:38:54,000 My mom was mentioning about this Boris guy. 779 00:38:54,000 --> 00:38:59,920 And actually this guy, Fernando and somebody else, they actually went with Boris to the 780 00:38:59,920 --> 00:39:00,920 field. 781 00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:01,920 Who what? 782 00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:02,920 Cool. 783 00:39:02,920 --> 00:39:03,920 Yeah. 784 00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:07,000 So we went to look for these guys and yeah, I mean, these guys actually, they were in 785 00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:10,000 his eighties or something like that. 786 00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:14,560 But yeah, when they were like 10 years old, something like that, they actually went with 787 00:39:14,560 --> 00:39:17,400 Boris to some of these places with one of the markings. 788 00:39:17,400 --> 00:39:18,400 Oh wow. 789 00:39:18,400 --> 00:39:24,560 It was kind of like some mystical experience for us, you know, like getting in touch with 790 00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:29,040 somebody that actually helped with our hero Boris Malkin. 791 00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:30,040 Wow. 792 00:39:30,040 --> 00:39:31,040 Yeah. 793 00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:32,040 That was a remarkable thing. 794 00:39:32,040 --> 00:39:33,040 Right. 795 00:39:33,040 --> 00:39:34,040 Absolutely. 796 00:39:34,040 --> 00:39:37,800 But this kind of thing, you know, I mean, when you do this kind of, you're visiting 797 00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:42,120 these places when you're, especially when you're off the track, you know, yeah, you 798 00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:45,840 can do a lot of traveling, you can visit places as a tourist and that's great. 799 00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:46,840 And it's really exciting. 800 00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:51,440 The good thing about doing field work is you get to go to places and contact people that 801 00:39:51,440 --> 00:39:55,320 is complete off the beaten track, you know. 802 00:39:55,320 --> 00:40:00,360 And this is, yeah, you always have these kinds of experiences with actually kind of like, 803 00:40:00,360 --> 00:40:02,080 you know, return everything you have. 804 00:40:02,080 --> 00:40:06,480 I mean, that is, I mean, that is a very remote place and that's an amazing connection, of 805 00:40:06,480 --> 00:40:08,040 course, to talk to those people. 806 00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:14,560 But in my experience, even when you are in very touristic places, if you're after animals, 807 00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:16,640 you go to places that tourists don't go. 808 00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:17,640 Yeah, absolutely. 809 00:40:17,640 --> 00:40:18,640 Absolutely. 810 00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:23,000 But believe it or not, I mean, I've been working a lot in the Canary Islands, I was telling 811 00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:27,440 you before, I did probably 20 times in the Canary Islands, I have never ever in my life 812 00:40:27,440 --> 00:40:28,440 go to the beach. 813 00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:31,440 I've been twice, but just for collecting. 814 00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:36,640 I've never actually swim in the Canary Islands, you know, when I talk with some of my friends, 815 00:40:36,640 --> 00:40:38,640 just like what's wrong with you. 816 00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:40,640 But yeah, that's how focused we are. 817 00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:44,640 Oh, no, you don't go to, I have been to the beach in the Canary Islands, don't go. 818 00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:48,840 No, that's not the best, the most remote place for me to stay. 819 00:40:48,840 --> 00:40:53,160 No, but it's amazing. 820 00:40:53,160 --> 00:40:56,840 Just the barrenness of them is quite amazing. 821 00:40:56,840 --> 00:41:01,320 And I can only imagine that those islands around Chile are even more, especially if 822 00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:04,240 you come from Robinson Crusoe Island. 823 00:41:04,240 --> 00:41:05,240 Yeah. 824 00:41:05,240 --> 00:41:09,000 The isolation is already in the name, right? 825 00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:13,360 The funny thing is that this is not the original names of the island. 826 00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:19,520 The islands were originally named Mas Adentro and Mas Afuera, the closest and the farthest 827 00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:21,240 away from the continent. 828 00:41:21,240 --> 00:41:26,360 But then I think it was in the 70s or in the 80s, the tourist office of the Chilean government 829 00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:29,160 decided that I was not catchy enough for Chilean. 830 00:41:29,160 --> 00:41:33,960 So they replaced their names by Robinson Crusoe, which because actually, I mean, I forgot to 831 00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:38,800 mention that, but these actually are the islands where Robinson Crusoe, the novel of William 832 00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:40,360 de Foy is based on. 833 00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:46,960 So the history is based on this Scottish sailor, which is Alejandro Selkirk, the name that 834 00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:49,240 was named after the other island. 835 00:41:49,240 --> 00:41:53,800 He was maroon in this island, I think it was in the 18th century. 836 00:41:53,800 --> 00:41:59,120 And the other interesting thing is that Selkirk was not, I mean, he was not maroon there because 837 00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:00,120 he sank his boat. 838 00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:02,080 No, no, they couldn't stand him. 839 00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:04,200 So they kicked him out from the boat. 840 00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:13,720 So of course, de Foy had to make some changes to make the character more appealing. 841 00:42:13,720 --> 00:42:14,720 Yeah. 842 00:42:14,720 --> 00:42:18,520 I mean, what do you have to do to be kicked over? 843 00:42:18,520 --> 00:42:21,520 To be a ship, you know? 844 00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:25,440 So yeah, so apparently he was not the most popular guy there. 845 00:42:25,440 --> 00:42:26,440 Amazing. 846 00:42:26,440 --> 00:42:27,440 Amazing. 847 00:42:27,440 --> 00:42:28,440 Yeah. 848 00:42:28,440 --> 00:42:31,880 It sounds like you have been to some amazing places. 849 00:42:31,880 --> 00:42:35,640 Are there any places that you still have on your list? 850 00:42:35,640 --> 00:42:36,640 Always. 851 00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:40,920 I mean, that's the reason to keep doing what I do. 852 00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:41,920 Yeah. 853 00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:46,080 Well, next thing is not so ecstatic. 854 00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:51,880 We have a project now where we're going to be doing a lot of similar to what I was explaining 855 00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:53,400 to you about the Panama. 856 00:42:53,400 --> 00:43:01,840 We're doing this standardized sampling in plots for doing comparisons of spider communities 857 00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:04,840 across big gradients. 858 00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:09,440 And this particular case, we will be focusing on spider communities in Cork Oak Forest, 859 00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:13,880 which as you know, is a forest typical from the Western Mediterranean. 860 00:43:13,880 --> 00:43:14,880 Yeah. 861 00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:17,800 So basically, we're going to be mid-May to mid-June. 862 00:43:17,800 --> 00:43:19,160 We're going to be in the field. 863 00:43:19,160 --> 00:43:23,720 We're going to be visiting these plots, which are distributed all over the Bering Peninsula 864 00:43:23,720 --> 00:43:25,520 and Spain mostly. 865 00:43:25,520 --> 00:43:26,520 Yeah. 866 00:43:26,520 --> 00:43:32,160 We'll be, you know, basically, there are 20, 20, yeah, 24 plots. 867 00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:33,160 So we're going to do it two years. 868 00:43:33,160 --> 00:43:36,000 We want to visit 12 plots this year, 12 plots next year. 869 00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:37,960 And this is really driving all around the peninsula. 870 00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:44,000 The Bering Peninsula is about 400, 5,000 kilometers of driving altogether. 871 00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:45,640 The whole tour. 872 00:43:45,640 --> 00:43:51,400 And basically, we're going to, every day we'll be collecting one of these plots. 873 00:43:51,400 --> 00:43:57,880 And the idea here again is we'll be trying to find out, you know, how environmental changes, 874 00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:02,120 most of them actually related to human activity, both in terms of climatic change, but also 875 00:44:02,120 --> 00:44:08,400 in terms of like, of taking profit of this Cork Oak Forest, mostly because of the cork, 876 00:44:08,400 --> 00:44:13,600 but also because, I mean, they use sometimes to feed, you know, the special brand of a 877 00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:16,040 breed of Iberian pig for jamon. 878 00:44:16,040 --> 00:44:22,080 So basically, there are forests that have been like traditionally quite exploited. 879 00:44:22,080 --> 00:44:27,480 And then you have all these different gradients of very open forests or very close forests 880 00:44:27,480 --> 00:44:31,320 that have not been, you know, used in the last decades. 881 00:44:31,320 --> 00:44:37,640 But also forests that are continuous, like mostly in the south, southwest Spain and Portugal, 882 00:44:37,640 --> 00:44:42,480 or like small pockets, like for example, in northern Spain. 883 00:44:42,480 --> 00:44:46,400 There are places actually where I was not even aware that were Cork Oak Forests, like 884 00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:47,400 in the Basque Country, for example. 885 00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:53,120 So in the Basque Country, they have like five hectares of Cork Oak Forests. 886 00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:54,120 Should be very different. 887 00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:55,120 It's very much wetter. 888 00:44:55,120 --> 00:44:56,120 Absolutely. 889 00:44:56,120 --> 00:44:57,120 Yeah. 890 00:44:57,120 --> 00:45:00,360 So it offers us great opportunity to see, you know, how these different, you know, climatic 891 00:45:00,360 --> 00:45:05,080 gradients without the use by humans may affect in this case, either communities. 892 00:45:05,080 --> 00:45:07,680 So yeah, that's what comes next. 893 00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:09,680 That sounds like an amazing road trip. 894 00:45:09,680 --> 00:45:14,360 Yeah, it's not exotic, but it's going to be amazing for food, for example. 895 00:45:14,360 --> 00:45:15,360 Yeah. 896 00:45:15,360 --> 00:45:20,280 And after there are some beautiful places, as I say, and they're very interesting. 897 00:45:20,280 --> 00:45:22,280 As you're well aware of. 898 00:45:22,280 --> 00:45:25,920 So yeah, that's what's coming next. 899 00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:26,920 Yeah. 900 00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:32,200 And if people want to keep an eye on you and find out what you're doing, where do they 901 00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:33,200 go? 902 00:45:33,200 --> 00:45:34,200 Where we can find them? 903 00:45:34,200 --> 00:45:40,760 Yeah, we keep this Twitter and Instagram account where we, you know, when we go to the field, 904 00:45:40,760 --> 00:45:41,760 we try to upload some pictures. 905 00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:42,760 Oh, great. 906 00:45:42,760 --> 00:45:45,760 I can provide you with a link maybe. 907 00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:48,960 Yes, I'll put it in the description of this podcast. 908 00:45:48,960 --> 00:45:51,960 So if you're listening, you'll see what Mika is up to. 909 00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:53,960 I will send you. 910 00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:54,960 Right. 911 00:45:54,960 --> 00:46:02,960 This is the Spider from Systematics Evo from Evolution. 912 00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:09,000 So this is, you can find us there on both Twitter and Instagram. 913 00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:14,200 I mean, sometimes we're not so active, but you know, especially when we go to the field, 914 00:46:14,200 --> 00:46:20,040 we always try to upload some pictures and make some comments so they can track us there. 915 00:46:20,040 --> 00:46:21,040 At SpiderSysEvo. 916 00:46:21,040 --> 00:46:22,040 All right. 917 00:46:22,040 --> 00:46:23,040 Right. 918 00:46:23,040 --> 00:46:24,040 And Sis is with a Y. 919 00:46:24,040 --> 00:46:25,040 All right. 920 00:46:25,040 --> 00:46:30,040 All right, Mikael, thank you very much for your amazing story. 921 00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:35,040 That was a real pleasure, and congratulations on this initiative. 922 00:46:35,040 --> 00:46:36,040 It's really amazing. 923 00:46:36,040 --> 00:46:39,040 I mean, I think you're doing a terrific job. 924 00:46:39,040 --> 00:46:40,040 So thank you. 925 00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:41,040 I'm glad you're doing this. 926 00:46:41,040 --> 00:46:42,040 That was a real pleasure. 927 00:46:42,040 --> 00:46:43,040 Absolutely. 928 00:46:43,040 --> 00:46:48,600 And I'll catch you very soon because we're both on the Defense Committee. 929 00:46:48,600 --> 00:46:49,600 Right. 930 00:46:49,600 --> 00:46:51,680 And we'll speak in real life. 931 00:46:51,680 --> 00:46:53,800 But for now, thank you very much. 932 00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:54,800 Until next time. 933 00:46:54,800 --> 00:47:03,120 Thank you, Eric.