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Velvet spiders include some of the most beautiful arachnids inEurope and some of the world's most cooperative species. Socialspecies can be very abundant in parts of tropical Africa and Asiawith conspicuous colonies dotting the landscape. Social coloniesmay consist of hundreds of closely-related individuals thatparticipate in dramatic mass attacks on prey (Figure 1) and carefor their young. The ecology of these social species is fascinating and has been thesubject of several landmark scientific papers. The study waspublished in a special issue of the open access journal ZooKeys. By contrast, most kinds of velvet spider are rarely encountered.Most species keep well hidden or dig burrows and live underground.Because of the cryptic habits of most velvet spiders, scientificknowledge of this spider family is uneven to say the least. Thename velvet spider accurately describes the dark and shinyappearance of these spiders. Some species also have brightly colored highlights, such as thered, white, and black ladybird spiders of Europe and North Asia(Figure 2). With the exception of one species from Brazil, velvetspiders live in Europe, Asia, and Africa. The international team assembled to advance basic knowledge aboutvelvet spiders included people and institutions from theNetherlands, Denmark, United States, Czechia, Hungary, and Iran. International collaboration in taxonomic research was the goal ofthe EDIT (European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy) IntegratedResearch grant, which provided most of the funding for thisproject. The team assembled a hefty library of images documentingthe anatomy of all the major kinds of velvet spider. This included both portrait-like color photographs and electronmicrographs showing details of the spigots that these spiders useto make silk. San Francisco-based artist Giovanni Maki contributedbeautiful drawings of the male genitalia. The project also used DNA sequence data to reconstruct theevolutionary history of velvet spiders. The DNA data confirmed thatone particularly enigmatic species belongs to a new genus (Figure3). In recognition of the fact that this velvet spider livesunderground, the new genus has been named Loureedia in a whimsicalsalute to the musician who began his distinguished career leadingthe 60s rock band "The Velvet Underground." In spite of all the progress that this new monograph represents,there is much more work still to be done. Taxonomy is a fundamentalscience, and advances in it can promote research in other areas. Some of the most obscure groups of velvet spiders from theMediterranean and Southern Africa will now be more easy to identifyand study. This is thanks to the progressive approach taken bypublisher Pensoft. The full-color monograph is freely available fordownload through the web site of the journal ZooKeys. Pictures and descriptions also appear on the wiki web siteSpecies-ID and an interactive map of the specimens used in thestudy is explorable using Google Earth (please note you must haveit installed in order to view the map). So this publically-fundedresearch on a remarkable and often beautiful group of spiders willbe freely available not only to scientists but to the public aswell. Miller JA, Griswold CE, Scharff N, Rezac M, Szuts T, Marhabaie M(2012) The velvet spiders: an atlas of the Eresidae (Arachnida,Araneae). ZooKeys 195: 1-144. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.195.2342. I am an expert from sportssiliconebracelets.com, while we provides the quality product, such as Silly Rubber Band Manufacturer , Silicone Balance Bracelet Manufacturer, Sports Silicone Bracelets,and more.
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