Spiders.us originally launched in 2009 as SpiderIdentification.org. In October of 2011, we decided to rebrand as Spiders.us. The .us extension communicates our desire to focus on spiders found in the United States and North America. The purpose of this site is to provide spider education and identification resources to both experienced arachnologists and less spider-savvy individuals. We want to provide you, our guest, with the best user experience possible combined with the best spider resources on the web.
Staff
Kyle Williams
Kyle’s first website launched in 1996, providing news and information on the upcoming award winning video game, Final Fantasy 7. Well before Google, Kyle realized the power of search and leveraged search engines like WebCrawler, AltaVista and Excite when promoting the Final Fantasy 7 website. Kyle’s interest in information strategy, organic natural search, ethical search strategy and online culture lead to the development of SurviveOutdoors.com in 2000. During his time managing Survive Outdoors, Kyle repeatedly witnessed how fearful people were of spiders. Having interest in the subject himself, he decided to launch the Spider Identification Guide to remedy public fear and online misinformation surrounding spiders.
Eric Eaton
Eric R. Eaton is principal author of the Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2007), and contributor to several other books. He has also written articles about insects and other animals for Ranger Rick, Missouri Conservationist, Timeline (journal of the Ohio Historical Society), and other popular magazines. Mr. Eaton studied entomology as an undergraduate at Oregon State University, and has worked as a professional entomologist most recently at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst). Previously, he has worked at Cincinnati Zoo and Chase Studio, Inc., as well as on private contract for the Smithsonian Institution, Portland State University, and the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources. He enjoys the respect of his network of professional colleagues, and has built a loyal following as a volunteer expert and consultant at WhatsThatBug.com, AllExperts.com (where he was one of the top 50 experts for the year 2009), and volunteer editor at Bugguide.net. His empathy for the squeamish and scared, knack for identification of mystery bugs, and his accurate, jargon-free explanations of insect biology have made him a leading figure in popular entomology. Eric currently lives in Tucson, Arizona, having grown up in Portland, Oregon and Cincinnati, Ohio.
Mandy Howe
Although Lady Arachnophile wishes that were her real name, her driver’s license says otherwise. Mandy Howe is a spideraholic. She has practiced a relaxed form of auto-didacticism most of her life. She is fueled by curiosity and only satisfied by knowledge. Mostly she’s just a very inquisitive goof-ball. She attended Western Washington University where she studied many subjects, but the sciences have always been her true loves. Around 2006, she decided to seriously pursue her spider passion and began studying Araneae systematics and life histories, while also dabbling a bit in the more complex area of phylogeny. She owns research equipment for collecting, preserving, identifying, and viewing spiders. Mandy breeds and rears a countless number of “pet” spiders in her makeshift lab and documents the details of their lives. She is a contributing editor at BugGuide.net, a member of the American Arachnological Society, the British Arachnological Society, the British Tarantula Society, and the International Society of Arachnology. On any given day, her routine is brimming with spider related research and activities. She finds spiders to be beautiful, misunderstood creatures and she loves nothing more than to dispel the public’s fear of them and pass on her knowledge to others. She understands there is no end to what can be learned or witnessed and, in that way, we will all be eternal students of nature. She is thankful for the professionals that have helped her along the way, especially Rick Vetter, Lenny Vincent, and Rod Crawford. She currently resides in the shadow of the mountain near Enumclaw, Washington, USA.