BugWise

The BugWise team at the Australian Museum is calling for volunteers in NSW to take photographs of web-building spiders and their webs. This is a great opportunity to use your talents and contribute to developing BugWise resources! We might use your photos in guides, presentations or on our web pages. If we use your images, they will be credited with you as the photographer.

Here’s what you need to do:

• Use the Web2Spider guide and record the web-type. You might think it looks like more than one web type, so be sure to write them all down.
• Record the location of the web (e.g. suburb or town). If possible, record the type of habitat where the web was found e.g. ‘In backyard’ or ‘Eucalyptus forest in Barrington Tops National Park’.  
• Take photos of the web and the spider (if you can see it) using your digital camera. Take note of the distinguishing features of the particular web-type (as noted in the Web2Spider guide) and be sure to take photos of these features. A photo of the entire web and several close-ups of the distinguishing features are best.
• Never touch the spider or coax it in anyway.
• Good photographs of webs—even without the spider—are valuable, so don’t worry if you can’t find the spider.
• Once you have finished photographing, send the photos and your notes to john.gollan@austmus.gov.au. Ensure you include your name and contact details so that we can contact you if required.
• We will send you an agreement form to fill out, giving us permission to use your images. The agreement is a non-exculsive licence to reproduce/publish images, but you retain the copyright.

Some tips for photographing webs:

• Use a digital camera—it’s a real challenge to take photographs of webs and you will probably take lots of images. Conventional photography will be too expensive.
• Use the ‘Macro’ setting on your camera for close-ups.
• Take photos early in the day when the sun is low.
• Take advantage of the early morning dew – so that webs are obvious. You can simulate dew by spraying with a hand held water-mister. Using a mister will also make it easier to identify distinguishing features of webs.
• Use a dark background when taking photographs. A piece of black cardboard (non-gloss) can be used to highlight the web. This helps cameras with auto-focus’ options to focus on the web and not what’s in the background.
• You may need to experiment with different angles so move about and take more photos than you need.
• Make sure your files are no bigger than 2MB. If possible store your original files and we may contact you and request your high quality images.