For the last month and a half, our daily life revolved around collecting and identifying tens of thousands of eight legged animals. These creatures, large and small, determined when we slept, when we ate, where we drove and even visited us in our dreams. As we became more and more familiar with the arachnids of the Dominican Republic we also became more familiar with each other. The team grew closer, stronger and more efficient, becoming a big arachnological family. Our final departure from Santo Domingo on July 12th was bittersweet: a relief to be done and to return to creature comforts like potable tap water and wifi, yet also sad to disperse the family we formed here. 

 We are all leaving safe and sound, though our final tally of mishaps was 3 escaped scorpions later found in the car, the bed and Trevor’s pants, 5 flat tires, 15 wasp stings, 2 sea urchin calamities, a jellyfish sting, a case of whooping cough, a full body rash, a sprained ankle, a stubbed toe, 157 cactus spines, countless unfortunate bowel movements, and several liters of blood lost to mosquitoes. By now, Lauren, Micah, Angela and Guillaume have arrived in Berkeley, and Solanlly and Gabriel resume their work at the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural in Santo Domingo. Jenny Sparkles the dog has landed in Puerto Rico via ferry to meet her new family. Trevor, Katy, Alex and Ian remain in Puerto Rico helping to finish sorting the specimens at the University of Puerto Rico. The Lewis and Clark crew will also collect at an igneous cave system on the SE corner of Puerto Rico before returning to Portland July 25th.

Please stay tuned for updates from the team in Puerto Rico and the premier of our movie DROO7: License to Collect…Arachnids. 

Our final two collecting sites in the Dominican Republic were Cachóte and Bahía de las Águilas in the SW corner of the country, nestled within the UNESCO biosphere reserve. These sites were chosen with extreme care when we realized the brevity of our remaining time and the vast number of possible sites to collect. Our aim was to target habit types that were underrepresented within our survey and relatively understudied by arachnologists.

Cachóte is a former coffee plantation turned cloud forest located on the eastern edge of Parque Nacional de Bahorouco. The park is reached via a horrific dirt road, which our Lonely Planet guidebook suggested to be attempted only by “expert rally car drivers.” Despite this warning, we pushed on late into the evening, yet were eventually thwarted by a flat tire. We were forced to spend the night at a nearby hotel, and carry on the next morning after fixing the flat. On the way to the summit “Party Car”, driven by Micah, plowed through the uneven dirt road with its undercarriage, sometimes only on two wheels and other times aided by a team of four pushing from behind  (shhh don’t tell Thrifty Car Rental). Once on top, we sampled the young forest surrounding our camp. Superficially, the site seemed nothing out of the ordinary, but the moist leaf litter yielded a high density of spiders including some awesome little Oonopids. At night, the lights of our headlamps were diffused by the dense fog, which enveloped us as we hunted for orbweavers and scorpions. 

We celebrated our successful descent with a trip to the breathtaking Bahía de las Águilas on the farthest SE corner of the island in Parque Nacional Jaragua. Our drive was bordered by silky blue waves crashing on white pebble sands. The final few miles to our final destination, a 14km stretch of beach was especially challenging and the” Party Car” was emptied and left behind. Even “Alpha Truck,” professionally maneuvered by Lauren, bottomed out in waist deep depressions on the road leading down a cliffside. Once there, the only thing able to distract us from arachnids was the breathtaking views and endless hordes of mosquitoes and bees. We woke at 6am to beat the heat, and among the spiky, unforgiving, vegetation and shallow caves in the desert environment we collected many focal arachnids including Loxoceles, Argiope and Amblypygi. The team finished the six-week expedition sitting on a dock, miles from the nearest living soul, watching the sunset over crystal blue waters.

Our interview in ResearchMediaLtd publication International Innovation

Leaving Isla Cabritos, we only had a vague idea of where we would collect next. We knew that Sierra de Bahoruco was the next stop, but the park is huge and our reservation at a hotel for the next week was unexpectedly cancelled.  Therefore we followed a suggestion from Gabriel De Los Santos to visit a small bird watching camp near Rabo de Gato through the north entrance of the park. We arrived expecting no rooms available and ready to camp anywhere with flat ground. Fortunately, we were welcomed with open arms by a sweet couple that proceeded to prepare five cabins. After settling in, we promptly set out to collect. The forest here is astounding; a moist valley surrounded by an expanse of untouched tropical dry forest. Rabo de Gato is fed by a natural spring, and dominated by large karst stones, deep leaf litter, and towering mahogany trees.

In the first fifteen minutes of collecting we uncovered two of the rarest spider families in the world: Lauren and Angela unearthed a humongous 2 cm long Caponiid, and Trevor found a beautiful transparent purple Drymusid under a stone. The discovery did not stop there. That night, we searched under the full moon framed by the soft walls of the valley. By the time we went to bed, we had collected specimens representing five arachnid orders including thelyphonids, four genera of scorpions, and tetragnathids in webs spanning a small stream.

We collected in Rabo de Gato for two amazing days. The majesty of the landscape, and the incredible biodiversity revitalized the weathered team. After five weeks of fieldwork, this location was a breath of fresh air and reminded us all why we love collecting arachnids. This energy will carry us through the final week of collection, focused on the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in the southwest peninsula of the country.

            Following Valle Nuevo the team made an impromptu overnight stop at Ebano Verde, a small reserve of cloud forest. A wide variety of Tetragnatha wove intricate webs over pristine pools at the foot of small waterfalls. The surrounding foliage was dense with jumping spiders and other interesting arachnids making the trip worth sleeping on the floor of the ranger station, burning gas in a generator for a few hours of electricity.

            Travelling to José Armando Bermudez, we ventured deeper into the central mountain range. There we hired guides and mules to pack our gear from La Cienaga to Los Tablones, a quiet camp nestled in the forest. Two team members, Ian and Trevor, split off to sample higher elevations reaching the summit of Pico Duarte, the highest point in all of the Caribbean (3,087 meters). Both groups found many valuable specimens and enjoyed camping near the sound of running water. A huge rainstorm left the team damp before packing out the next morning. Zamira and Anne left the team for their respective homes in Puerto Rico and Portland, OR.

            The drive from Armando Bermudez to our current location in Parque Nacional Isla Carbritos took an exhausting nine hours. In this time we moved from the highest peak (Pico Duarte) to the lowest depression (Isla Carbritos) in the entire Caribbean in a single day . After over a week of sampling in the cool mountains, the insane heat here is a shock. The team perseveres regardless. Today four members loaded on a boat to spend the night on Isla Carbritos in the middle of the largest salt water lake in the Caribbean. The island is no doubt crawling with scorpions and other amazing eight legged friends. Those on the shore searched by a nearly full moon around the perimeter of the lake and will sample a nearby cave in the morning. Our next stop will be the north entrance of Sierra Bahoruco.