L to R: Darrell Ubick, Jim Starrett, Shahan Derkarabetian, Allan Cabrero

A few members of the Hedin lab recently traveled to the CAS to learn harvestmen morphology “tricks of the trade” from Darrell Ubick, Senior Curatorial Assistant at the CAS.  Darrell is world renowned for his expertise on the morphology and taxonomy of North American laniatores harvestmen.  Thanks to Darrell for his kindness & insight, helping to inspire and educate the next generation of harvestmen researchers.

Like kids in a candy store we were also able to examine and loan a fair number of important CAS specimens. Vic Smith was also kind enough to show us some of his methods for whole-animal digital imaging.  And thanks to Charles Griswold for helping to facilitate this visit!

Included below are two videos that detail i) extracting Laniatores genitalia, and ii) Specimen prep for the SEM.