Western Australia supports an extraordinary diversity of trapdoor and other mygalomorph spiders, much of which remains undescribed or poorly understood. In this talk, Jeremy will draw on current research at the Western Australian Museum to explore how fieldwork, museum collections, morphology and DNA are helping to uncover this diversity, understand how species are distributed across the landscape, and ultimately inform their conservation.

Jeremy is Curator of Arachnids and Myriapods at the Western Australian Museum. His current research focuses on the taxonomy, evolution and conservation of Australian mygalomorph spiders, including trapdoor and wishbone spiders. He combines museum collections, fieldwork, morphology and molecular data to document species diversity and better understand how these spiders have diversified across Australian landscapes.

Photo left: Jeremy digging for trapdoor – photo credit Bryan Lessard; right: Idiosoma sp. ‘dome-door’ – burrow.