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Prestigious research grant for joint University/Museum spider project
Published by the Communications and Development Department
17 September 2003
Professor Robert Jackson, School of Biological Sciences, and Canterbury Museum Curator of Invertebrate Zoology, Dr Simon Pollard are the recipients of a three year, $630,000 research grant from the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund.
The successful research proposal is titled The Mosquito Terminator: Processes underlying selective attention in miniature brains and is to study a spider found in Kenya and Uganda that feeds indirectly on blood by finding and capturing its preferred prey, blood-fed female mosquitoes (i.e., the mosquito is something like a winged syringe that delivers blood, unwillingly, to the spider, Evarcha culicivora.) No other spiders are known to feed on blood.
Evarcha belongs to a group of spiders called jumping spiders, which have eyesight to rival a primate and the predatory cunning of a lion. It has been named the mosquito terminator because, like its movie namesake, it is on a mission to seek and destroy. When the spider smells blood, it will often launch into a feeding frenzy, killing as many as 20 mosquitoes in quick succession.
While the study focuses on understanding vision-based cognition in miniature animals, it will also have links to applied research on malaria because the spider’s preferred prey often carry malaria.
Dr Pollard is an adjunct senior fellow in the University’s School of Biological Sciences and has worked with Professor Jackson for 25 years. Both are spider biologists and have made many trips to Asia and Africa to study tropical spiders.
Canterbury Museum Director, Anthony Wright, says, "The grant received by Dr Pollard and Professor Jackson is a great affirmation of the Memorandum of Understanding between Canterbury Museum and the University.”
The Marsden Fund was set up by the Government, to support excellence in research. Applications are assessed by panels of experts in the following groupings: biomedical sciences; cellular, molecular and physiological biology; ecology, evolution and behaviour; earth sciences and astronomy; physical sciences and engineering; mathematical and information sciences; social sciences; and the humanities.
Only 15% of applicants are successful for this prestigious award and only a few have been awarded to people in New Zealand museums.
Dr Pollard, says, "Our success in getting the Marsden is in no small way a reflection on how much the Museum has supported my research over the years. In fact, the Canterbury Museum Mason Fund support for my research in Africa in 2001 with Professor Jackson, sowed the seed for this joint Marsden proposal. This is a fantastic opportunity to understand how a spider with big eyes and a tiny brain can behave like a small predatory mammal. These spiders can actually watch television, and that keeps me awake at night!"
Dr Pollard is also a natural history writer and photographer and is the author of the award winning children’s book I am a Spider.
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