The League of Pholcid Spiders
In the previous post, I did mention that my aim is to turn Pholcid spiders into a non-model species for genetic manipulation. But what type of species? Yes, the one I have in mind is the common cellar spider a.k.a. daddy long-leg spider. Yes, those that spin nuisance web at home and requires constant cleaning spree by us hehehe... But, do you know that nuisance web is actually a protection for us which cellar spiders provide to protect us from harmful insect pest such as mosquitoes, flies etc.? And also because of that nuisance web, it managed to draw my attention to choose cellar spider as a subject of my research. I always have this thought in my mind as a biotechnologist@biohacker, what I can do with the web. What if I can turn this 'nuisance' web into something beneficial for human apart from that as a protection? So this curiosity finally brought me to the first encounter with the most common cellar spider, C. lyoni at kampung where they flourished in huge amount. I also managed to convince my friend to use the web in her stem cell research and she did and published that study hehe.. Afterwards, lyoni spider has been part of my research life until now and I know her BETTER than I know myself!. However, things have changed when I came across another two common cellar spider, Micropholcus fauroti and Physocyclus globosus. Interestingly, they were all abundant at my own house. Although all of them are synantrophic (they live in human-dwellings), among these three, M. fauroti displays the very close connection to human. Why? because there was one time I was doing something on the lappy when suddenly one fauroti spider without fear, spun web at the edge of the laptop screen! Since then, I told myself that the other two cellar spiders will be absorb into the league. Now, I have a league of Pholcid spiders that is going to rock the world in the future.
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