Gather around everyone because warming his hands at the zoologist campfire with us today
is my fellow arachnologist Rodrigo Willemart. Rodrigo got his PhD at the University of Sao
Paulo and he is now a professor there. In between he has worked in several countries,
Argentina, France, Wales and several places in the USA. Back at the University of Sao
Paulo he now runs the LESCA, the Laboratory of Sensory Ecology and Behavior of Arachnids.
There he and his team of students study arachnids including spiders, camel spiders, whip spiders
and his favorites opiliones or harvestmen. And in this research Rodrigo tries to find
out how arachnids use their senses and other parts of their bodies to defend themselves,
to catch prey, to find food and find partners. And you may think that that means traveling
to many exotic places and lying on your belly on the ground to see what those critters are
up to. Well, let's find out. Rodrigo, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you very much. Thanks for having me, Ari. Yeah. Pleasure to be here. It's overdue.
I know you have some good stories there. Is it true? Are opiliones your favorite arachnids?
Yeah, yeah, they probably are. I've been working also with scorpions a lot today, but opiliones
are still probably my favorite ones. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what people usually call daddy
long legs or harvestmen. Yeah. Those little balls with those long legs that you see walking
around. They are amazing. They're like aliens. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Well, scorpions are my
favorite. Sorry about that. Yeah, I know that. Well, actually our work with scorpions is
more trying to kill them. So it's for controlling dangerous scorpions. So you probably won't
be happy to hear that. But yeah, that's what my research is about one of the lines.
I've read those papers of yours trying to kill scorpions in Sao Paulo. I mean, that's
a scorpion that is a big nuisance there, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I still, I'm very
much looking forward to going into the field with you one day. But for now, I'll have to
settle for your stories. Okay. So what do you have for us today? I guess you'll be chasing
spiders. Yes. So yeah, I'm going to be telling three stories and two on days in arachnids,
days in harvestmen. But maybe I'll begin with one that happened in the US after an arachnology
Congress. So we went to this Congress, the two places in Colorado, the US. And then after
the meeting, me and two students of mine, Gabrielle and Avatar, Guillermi, we went to
Yellowstone because we wanted to see bear the wild, not in a zoo. So we spent eight days
there in Yellowstone trying to see a bear. That's a beautiful place, right? I mean, what
time of year were you there? I don't remember, but probably the beginning of, yeah, probably
around March and February, I believe. Early spring. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I don't
know. I don't have it because I don't know. I have to check that. Okay. But it wasn't
winter so it can't be March and February. So maybe by July. Oh, okay. It's usually
in the beginning of the year or by the middle of the year. So I'll guess in July then. So
nice weather anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice weather, beautiful park. And you know, it's
really, really, really an amazing place to be there. So we spent the seven first days
seeing all kinds of animals, bison and antelopes and wolves, coyotes, but not the bears. So
by the seventh day we decided we would go up on top of this hill so we could get almost
a 30, 360 degrees view. And we heard there was a bear around a few days. So we were there
and then we saw a bunch of cars pulling over down there. So cars pulling over means there's
an animal there. Something interesting. Yeah, because that's why cars pulled over. So then
we rushed running. We started running going down the hill. Then we took our camera out
with this nice zoom and we looked at the camera and sure enough there was a bear lying down
the road. So we kept running, running, running, running, because it was really a high, high
hill. So we ran, ran, ran, ran, tripped over a couple of times. And then we were by the
middle of the hill and then we noticed that the cars started going away. Okay. Then we
were, who am I? So then the bear left. Because otherwise they would- Maybe. Yeah. So we said,
okay, so then let's keep going down. And then when we are by around maybe a hundred meters
away from the road, we stopped and then we climbed, we climbed on this falling tree trunk.
The three of us were there looking for the bear, looking for the bear. And then Gabrielle
tells me, Rodrigo, the bear is right there. And then we look, the bear was right there.
I think maybe 16 meters away from us. But it's kind of a scary situation because there
was, at this point, there was nobody there. There were the three of us, no cars, no shelters,
not anything. We were walking there. So it's so really scary situation that I hadn't felt
before yet in my life. And then you saw this bear, then the bear is wandering around and
then the bear stared at us. And when it did this, oh my God. So then at this time, so
I had this bear spray. So I had the bear spray in one hand. I have all of that I have in
Gideon because I have my cell phone recording. The problem is that I was really scary. So
I was really trembling. So my hand was like this. So the image is not really the best
image. And then I had the bear spray like this and recording everything. And then Gabrielle,
he took his pocket knife, one of the Swiss army knives, this big to protect itself against
the bear. And there he was with his knife and me with the bear spray. And then the bear,
he looked at us for maybe 10 seconds and then just kept walking. He didn't really care about
us. But it was this amazing sensation of kind of a mixture of fear and pleasure at the same
time. And for this seconds of interactions, I can certainly say it was the strongest thing
that I ever felt in my life, this mixture of fear and pleasure. And my legs were really
shaking and trembling. And then when the bear left, he just ran away and went up the hill.
And then the other two Gabrielle and Gideon asked us the same time, are your legs trembling
also? And I said, yes, they are. So the three of us, we were like, oh my god, we're so scared.
Anyway, the bear left.
Oh, but that's, I mean, it's such a different thing behind bars or in the field with you
and you have nowhere to hide. That's such a different situation.
I think that's the scariest thing that when you know there's nobody there, there's you
and the bear. And by the way, it was the brown bear, not the black bear. The brown bear is
the scarier. Yeah, it's a lot bigger. Yeah. Anyway, what about you?
You're at the mercy of the bear essentially, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, my best friend, but you know, I was so scared that I don't even
know if I would be able to use it.
Yeah, maybe it just pisses him off. Yeah.
Oh, awesome. Yeah. No, it's finding a big mammal like that, that you have no control
over in the field. That's next. Yeah. But it was, as I said, really amazing sensation.
It's chilling. Really good.
It is funny that even the most experienced biologists still say that, like, that's the,
it's so primal, I guess.
Yeah. Actually, I never saw a jaguar, for example. I've been walking in rainforest for
more than 20 years. I've seen pop range several times on jaguars. Yeah. In Brazil. But never
the actual one. Yeah, in Brazil. Yeah. In the rainforest where I worked. The times when
I saw a jaguar was as a tourist. Then this was easy because you get on a boat, you go
to Antanau, it's a savanna area in Brazil. There are tours where people go there to see
jaguars. And then it's a nice, a different situation, but it's full of people on the
boats. And then I've seen 11 different individuals of jaguars in a day in a house. Oh, wow. And
I have pictures and videos, all of them, they're there. Because it's not the same because I
mean, it's full of five, six boats with 10 people on each boat. So it's not the same
experience. As seeing a bear. No, you're relatively safe. At least you probably feel safe. But
I mean, doing field work in Brazil, I mean, I don't have that much experience, obviously,
but I've been in Colombia and we were on our hands and knees. Like I just said in the introduction
that that's what you do a lot as an aeronologist picking between the leaves and we're looking
for these tiny arachnids at night in the jungle. And you think, well, you know, anything could
sneak up on you essentially. Yeah, that is true. The thing is to me, I really don't,
don't bother too much about jaguars because if you do, then you just don't do the field
work. I mean, you know, they're there. I'm sure that probably most probably oftentimes
jaguars were around and they were maybe watching me, but they're scared because of the headlamps,
you know, and you move, you know, weird way. And so in Pantanal in this southern area,
and I was talking about that, it's different because there the jaguars are used to humans.
And that's actually a problem because if you have a look at papers, you're going to see
that jaguar attacks on human beings. They're really, there's no record on Mata Atlantis,
this rainforest we have in South Brazil. I found one or two reports in Amazonian forest,
but then really, really rare, but then in Pantanal it does happen. Okay. So you should
Google it, you'll find the jaguar attack, Pantanal you will find where there are half
killed people. But there is because people get too close to them and they're just, they're
not afraid of people anymore. Okay. So you find yourself, for example, you should Google
on the road. There was one case I remember it was a fisherman that left his child on
a tent in a tent while he was fishing, the jaguar got in the tent and killed the poor
kid. I mean, these are still rare, but it did happen in Pantanal where jaguars just
got used to people. But you're not worried when you're in the field looking for your
arachnids that something like that will happen? No, no, because I know that the area where
I work in this rainforest are areas where jaguars are known to just flee. They're not
used to us. They don't see us. I'm not worried about jaguars, life you would. If I was to
work at Pantanal where there are jaguar attacks, then of course, probably I wouldn't even do
shoot over there. But in the rainforest where I'm used to working, it's fine. I don't really
care about it. I care more about snakes than about jaguars. And you go a lot to the rainforest
in Brazil, right, with your students and- Yes, yes, yes, very often. All our fieldwork,
except for now that I'm also being collected scorpions, then we go to cemeteries where
scorpions are easier to find. Cemeteries? Oh, yeah, yeah. They're like quiet places.
Quiet places and full of roaches. Oh, yeah, because there are roaches there, so the scorpions
are all there. So it's very common here in Brazil that where there are scorpions invading
houses, commonly there are cemeteries close to these houses and that's where the scorpions
come from. Yeah, because they're all over the place, the cemetery, because they eat
the roaches, their shelter, there's everything they need there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And as
I said, they like quiet places that haven't been disturbed too much. Yeah, sure. But after
from that, yeah, the rainforest is where I'm used to going and then I have lots of experiences
also we can maybe bring us to the next. Yes, yes, yes, please. This was in a rainforest,
this big area in the south of the state of São Paulo. It's an area that it includes
tree parks, Carves Botelho, Petar and Intervales. The three of them combined make an area of
more than 100,000 hectares. So it's a pretty big area, full of jaguars by the way, there
are more than 30 jaguars that are known there. And so I used to go there to collect my cute
harvest land, the Opelionids. Yes. So I was in my master thesis by that time and we needed
50 animals for an experiment we wanted to do. So I calculated that 50 animals maybe the
entire night, one night would do. So I went to the studio with this friend of mine, a
girl friend of mine that also worked in the lab. Then we went there with the goal of gathering,
of collecting 50 animals. So there we are, we set up our tent and then went for collecting
you know, this amazing rainforest environment, you know, crickets singing and totally dark.
The only light we could see was the light of our headlamps, this humid environment,
so really amazing environment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're being there. And then, so
we needed this 50 animals, cool. And then while I was finishing setting up the tent,
some harvest land of the species I needed were climbing the tent. Oh, perfect. Yeah,
so then I collected one, then I collected another one, then that happened. Then I put
one, all climbing the tent. I was like, what's going on? Yeah. And then I started walking,
moving away from the tent and more harvest land were coming. Oh, it's an invasion. Perfect.
Then we collected and by, I don't know, maybe in half an hour, we had 50 animals. That is
really hard to do. Yeah. And I was planning an entire night to get 50 animals. And I was
like, there's something going on there. So we kept walking away from the tent and there
was this avalanche of ants, army ants, coming towards the tent. Oh my God, I had never seen
that. I mean, I had seen army ants before, you know, forming lines, like sometimes large
lines like this and millions of ants. This time, I swear, it was more than five meters
wide. And I don't know how many meters long, but millions of ants. Wow. Ants maybe like
this, army ants, coming towards us. And then of course, all the animals were just waiting,
moving away from there. And it was coming towards our tent, by the way. Oh yeah, not
so good. Oh my God. Yeah. Oh my God. It was so amazing. I had never seen it. And then
we actually saw harvest man being overwhelmed by ants and all the chemical defense, you
know, that papers talk about. Yes, just shouldn't care about. You were proud of harvest man
being destroyed by dozens of ants. Okay. But I thought, well, let's see if insect repellent
might repel them since they are insects. So I remember I grabbed my insect repellent,
the spray one, then I removed the spray part and I just dropped a line of repellent around
my tent to see if they would avoid it. Of course. Yeah. You want to do the experiment
right away. Of course. It's an insect repellent after all. They didn't care. They just walked
on the repellent as if there wasn't anything there. They just kept walking, kept walking.
It was, I haven't seen this Indiana Jones and the Crystal School movie where there are
these army ants that kill people. Kind of like that, but except that there were not
that big of a force, they moved their non-existing gigantic ants. And of course they don't move
as fast. I mean, there's still ants. So you just step back and you're safe. It's not like
the movie where they kill the person, they kill the person, but it's still very, very
scary. So then, well, we had to move the tent, of course. So then we moved the tent, we crossed
a stream that was there, set up the tent, some other place. Yeah. And that was that.
So then we had our 50 ants, but then within half an hour. Perfect. Yeah. So the end of
the story is that we didn't really have much to do the rest of the night because now we
had the entire night free. There was me and this good friend of mine. So what do we do
now? What do we do now? We were by ourselves in the jungle in a tent. So we ended up dating
for three years after that night. So the ants gave me a girlfriend after that.
Say no more. Yes. That's the end of the story. Yeah. Well, thank you, army ants. Thanks to
our army ants. Yeah. Fantastic. It must be great to see a real army moving on the war
path like that. They eat everything, right? I mean, they don't eat it. And people like
in Indiana Jones, but I think babies have been killed that have been left behind in
houses. At least for the African army ants when they come by. Wow. Yeah. That's surprising.
I mean, if you can escape from them, I mean, if I laid down there and just stayed there,
I don't know if I would absolutely fight. They will take you apart, I think. Yeah. I
mean, there are so many. There are so many. Yeah. It's really amazing to see. It was a
bit scary. Wow. Yeah, no, but it's a fantastic experience and easy to catch. So if you would
know there was one moving in the neighborhood, you could go there and collect lots and lots
of critters, I guess. Yeah. I think I've seen army ants before, but always kind of a line,
sometimes larger, but never as many. As I said, these were pretty big ones. I've seen
also army ants of smaller species that are really just smaller. These ones are, army
ants, I think it's a family or family of ants. I don't remember, but there are several species
that do that. And this one, they were pretty big. Wow. Awesome experience. Yeah. That's
what you get when you spend a lot of time in the jungle. You get to see all these rare
occurrences as well. Yeah. And it's not only about the, let's say the biotic environment,
but also about the adiabatic environment, like the next story about that. So it's actually
not as minimal, but it happens. Okay. So let's give an introduction. So I used to do this
field work where we worked on a cave. In a cave, we would collect the data from a cave
harvester, but to get there, it was a long three hours walk to get to the cave. More
of course, three hours to get back, in addition to probably half an hour driving. In this
park, the same area, and I was talking about before, in the park called Intervales. So
there were five of us. There was me, an ex-girlfriend, by the way, this girl that I was talking about
that became my girlfriend. By now she was ex, yes? She was still my girlfriend by that
time. Oh, right, right, right. She's now an ex, but she was still, yeah, we were still
dating by that time. And there were the two of us, her sister, her boyfriend, and the
guide. So the guide called Faustine, we talked a lot about it. So five people. So then to
get to the cave, we would cross several streams, shallow streams, two hours, then we would
work on a cave the entire day. What we have to realize that when we're in this cave, you
don't really know what's going on outside because sometimes it's as you were in a mall
because you don't know if it's sunny, if it's rainy, you don't know what's going on outside.
And then when we left the cave at maybe five, six PM, maybe it was raining a lot. Then we
made our walk back to the car. And then after maybe two hours and something, 12 and a half,
when we're about to cross the last river, last stream actually, well, the stream wasn't
the stream anymore. The water level was really higher, muddy water, very strong current,
dangerous troughs. Okay, so then we had to cross it because it was probably around maybe
10 meters wide if you had to cross. That is a big stream.
Yeah. 10 meters more or less. And this river would flow into a larger one about 50, 100
meters ahead from where we were. It would flow into a larger one, which of course deeper
and even stronger current, so dangerous area to be. And we had to cross it because our
car was now maybe 15 minutes away from that river. And then Faustino, the guy, was really
strong built, heavyweight person, he's really strong. He took his machete, not an axe, a
machete. So machete in Portuguese for those Brazilians that are watching is a facão. It's
not really an axe. And he knocked down a tree with a machete. He knocked down this big tree
somehow. I would never do that, but he was. And then he knocked down the tree. This big
tree, because this tree just crossed all the river, meaning that the tree was less here
than the width of the river. Then he knocked down the tree. Okay. So now the idea was to
hold the tree, the tree trunk, and walk sideways with our foot on the sheet of water and trust
the river. That was the idea. Smart. Yeah. Hold like this and then just cross like this.
Yeah. Here we go to the other side. Then Ricardo, the boyfriend, my girlfriend's sister, he
was the first one. So he went on. And so Ricardo, you're going to understand this guy is this
very calm, quiet, low profile person, very shy. And then he entered there and then not
even halfway through the river, he said something. Yeah. And I was like, what? Ricardo said that
again. He's, what? Can't hear you. Yeah. Said louder. And then he was saying help. Oh. But
in his way, you know, there inside, help, help. Yes. He said, yes, help. Like fucking
jumping into the water. Like, go faster. Yeah. He jumped into the water, on the tree trunk,
whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And so what happened is he lose grip of his feet so that his feet
were not on the ground anymore. His legs were just like this. Oh yeah. And he was holding
himself just by the arms on the tree trunk. So if in this situation, if he let go of the
arms, he fled because I mean, as I told you, the Falling River is a big one. Even bigger.
So he was pretty much almost getting killed. And what had been is, you know, he's so calm,
and so calm. And so then, so we got to him, we entangled our arms, we had him between
us. Yeah. Like with heavy steps so that he could entangle his legs with our legs and
put his feet back on the floor. And there he was now with his feet back on the floor
where the three of us holding each other together. Then we got back to where we came from safe.
We got him out of the water. Then the three of us were safe. But by that time, I mean,
the guy almost died. The two girls, they were going mad. So and we were all hungry also.
And you know, her girl, it plays a big role in our humor, right? So it was by now it was
maybe seven o'clock p.m. We hadn't had dinner yet. So then Faustina and I, we talked about
and we said, well, maybe why don't we try and cross the river, the two of us, since
we managed to do the first time when he got Ricardo out of the water. And then we get
the car. We go to the restaurant. We get food for everybody. Cross the river back. We get
a rope or something there. And we get a meal for everybody. And then we think what we do.
Who knows? Maybe the river will just shower. Yeah. I don't know. By the time it wasn't
raining anymore. OK. Yeah. So this was better. So then we did this. We crossed the river.
We got the car. We went to the restaurant. We got food for everybody. Faustina got this
gigantic rope, big, big, long rope. We went back to the car. We crossed the river. And
then there we were. We were having this meal. Everybody was slightly taller. But it helps.
Yeah. I was having an amazing time, by the way. Faustina and I were like, we were feeling
adventurous, you know. Yeah. It's just so wild. We are helping and we are crossing the
river. And we were like, wow, this is so fun. So much fun. So then OK. So then now everybody
is fed. We're OK. And then so the idea for Faustina had is OK. So here we go. There's
a tree trunk here. I'm going to tie the rope on top of the tree trunk, parallel to the
tree trunk, also crossing the river on trees this side and this side so that we can walk
sideways on the tree trunk holding in the rope so that our food won't be in the water.
And we just walk and we get the other side. A real bridge. Yeah, man. Like a bridge. Exactly.
But then Faustina, he built somehow with the same rope that he used to cross the river
parallel to the tree trunk. He made what's called a harness. OK. So a harness for Brazilians
that are listening to is what we call a cadeirinha. You know, that people, it's a gear with buckles
and straps that you tie, you wear around your waist and your thighs. And people use it for
mountaineering, for climbing. So he built one of these with the same rope. I don't know
how he did this. He did a bunch of knots and loops and whatever. I don't know why he did
this. So that when we were crossing the river, we were wearing this harness. Fantastic. Yeah,
fantastic. So if we slip and fell, then we wouldn't die. He's a real pro. Yeah, he's
a real pro. This guy is a mink. Yeah. Sure enough, then we cross the river this way safely.
I don't have a picture of this exact moment. I do have a picture. I can try and find this,
but I have a picture when Ricardo was saying in hell, I have a picture of that moment because
I didn't hear that. No, no, no. I didn't know what he was saying. And I have a picture of
the exact moment when he was saying hell, especially when I realized he was saying hell,
I just dropped the camera. But I don't have a picture of us crossing because then, you
know, everybody was really stressed and they didn't allow me. Yeah, I can imagine. When
I was trying to get a picture, they were like, I don't have a picture. Anyway, so we were
saying... You can joke with people. I just want the last picture of you, you know.
And it's funny, so I'll stand there and this guy, whenever I go there, whenever everybody that knows
me go there, the park, he always tells the story. This has been more than 20 years ago. And every
time, every time he tells the story, he's such a nice guy. And then except when he tells the story,
the water level was probably slightly higher than our knees, I would say. Somewhere between the knees
and the waist. But because of the water and the courage, it's so strong. If it goes fast enough,
that's gonna sweep you away. Yeah, totally. I mean, but when you say, okay, the water level is
slightly above their knees, it doesn't seem so scary. But with water current, it is
really dangerous. So when Faustino tells the story, he said, remember, the water was above our knees.
The water gets higher after 20 years, I guess. There we go. It's just like the bear story I told
you. If you ask Gabrielle how close was the bear, he's gonna say 10 meters away. That's a lie.
It feels close because there's nowhere to hide. I mean, yeah. That is true. It's just close.
Anyway, so everybody was alive after that. Oh, good. And well fed, too.
It's so amazing that you went to a restaurant to get food first. I mean, that's
very, that's for me, it's the funniest part of the story, actually.
Well, you are, but when I'm hungry, I agree to be fed. I mean, I can't think, I can't do anything
if I'm hungry. Well, I'm glad you feel the same because sometimes you're in the field with these
people who don't need food and they're the most annoying people in the world. Yeah, I got it. I
don't know. You have an amazing food experience too, so I don't know if for you it's the same.
You also have to eat all the time and be fed. Yeah, I get quirky without it.
Definitely. That was the thing. Everybody was getting cranked. All the five of us because we
were all hungry basically. Totally cold in the rain. Also, yeah, everything is worse when you're
hungry. So getting the meal was the priority there. Can I just ask, what were you looking for in the
cave? So we were doing, so this was the project of this girl, Marie-Claire. We published a couple
of papers together. She's called Keline. People can find that on Google. So she was doing,
what was it again? She was asking if different, so there are two morphs of males, the larger ones
and the smaller ones. So the alpha ones and the beta ones and the females. And she was trying
to understand if the area they use is different since the larger ones are supposedly territorial.
They defend territory from other males, so they should have a larger area. Then the smaller one,
there are sneakers and just sneaking in the territory of the larger one. She was looking
at that among other things. She was also measuring all the animals, the morphological differences
between the large males and the small males to see if it corresponds to the non-bimodal distribution
or not. Or if just a range of different males that is not really a bimodal distribution. I mean,
she was doing all kinds of stuff with the... So that was already a day with a lot of complex
measurements and observations in the cave then. Yeah, we would spend the entire day there. So
the... Yeah, it was really... We were usually really tired after this entire day of work because
we woke up very early, maybe five o'clock to be in, to walk three hours and work the entire day,
and then walk two hours back to the... So yeah, it was... We all were tired after each day of work.
And as you said, it's raining, so you start getting a bit cold when you stop walking.
So by the end of the day, you're tired, you're sleepy, you're hungry, you're dirty. So the
discussion when we used to go to this field was always when we were about to get in the car,
what would you prefer right now if you had to pick one? Meal, shower, or sleep?
And then we had the discussion, what would be better if you could pick only one? Because...
Anyway. Speaking of picking, if you could pick only one, what animal would you still like to see in
the wild? You went out of your way to see a bear, so I'm just curious to see if there's anything else.
Well, I can think of many. One that I would love to see that I've never seen, and I don't think I
will see, is a snake called Lacuzis. It's a big viper. We call it Surucucu in Brazil. And the thing
about this viper is that it can reach up to four meters long. Bushmaster, I think, in English.
Bushmaster? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I would love to see one of these because I've seen
vipers, several ones, botrops. I would say often, but I've seen many. In 20 years, I've seen many of
these. Several times we walked on top of it because we didn't see it. It did happen a couple of times.
When they are hiding behind tree trunks, falling tree trunks, they're just like this.
And you come from here, you walk, you walk, and then you see the snake is just there.
Okay. Wow. So I have had several encounters with vipers. I've seen a lot of them.
I've had several encounters with vipers, but always these botrops ones. There are amazing snakes,
but there's smaller ones. And these Lacuzis, I have only one friend that has seen one in the
field because they're also not easy to see, not even in the south of Brazil. In the Amazon,
apparently, not the Amazon. Anyway, some other areas in Brazil, they're easier to see, but where
I work, you can't. Big snakes, especially big vipers are usually very low density, right?
And they're well camouflaged. So even if there is one nearby. I think the first episode of the
podcast, Ignacio finds a Lacuzis. He tells a story about that. So maybe you want to listen to that.
I'm going to watch this for sure. Yeah. Another Brazil, but yeah.
Okay. What do you do? Which animals? Oh God.
Don't ask me. It will change every time you ask me, I think.
No, I like caves, especially I like seeing the, the emblem pigeons, the whip spiders in the caves.
I can go a hundred times and be amazed a hundred times. It's a wonderful thing to do.
And this was something in, you know, so in Sao Paulo, we have a species of Ambatreja,
you know, genus Carinus. It's a very small one. But then, so I was just seeing this animal.
I actually have a study on this species. But when I went to the Amazon forest,
there, not only there, but also more to the northeast of Brazil, but in the Amazon forest,
I've seen just gigantic ones, you know, giant, and the pigeons and there's so huge area. It's
because they're there standing on tree trunks and you see spiders here in the south of Brazil.
Yeah. But then instead of spiders, they're
at the pigeons and then get there. Yeah.
Over the place. Lots of them.
Lots of them. It's amazing. I mean, the first time I've seen it, I'm like, oh my God.
Oh my God. So cool. So cool.
It's nice to see those animals in the wild. I mean, I've studied them in the lab,
but to see them in the wild, you understand them much better.
Yeah. And you said,
no, all of them are amazing. It's hard to pick one or two that.
Yeah. They're just so good.
Of course. Of course.
Bushmaster is on the list then.
Yeah. Okay. If you want to know more about your research or want to follow you on social media,
where do we go? Okay. So probably my website
called Lisca. So it's in Portuguese. The name is in Portuguese, but it's the sensory college
and behavior of arthropods. Yes.
I actually have been working only on arachnids. I've been thinking about changing this name for
laboratory of arachnids instead of arthropods. But anyway, it's still officially it's arthropods.
Then you can find it on my website. What we do, our main research lines, papers, collaborators,
it's all there. Okay. I will make a link with this podcast
to your website. And with that.
Thanks very much. Thank you very much for your stories, Rodrigo.
I am, yeah, we definitely need to go into the field together someday
and find some more arachnids.
All right. Thank you very much for having me. It was a pleasure, pleasure and an honor to be here
talking with this big shot professor, Ari. Thank you very much for having me, Ari. Yeah.
All right. Thank you, Rodrigo.
Thank you. Bye bye.