It’s kind of like when your little brother’s trying to hit you and you put your hand on their forehead and they can’t reach you.

They’re not taking any chances.

You have to remember you’re hunting things that are almost the same size as you that can potentially harm you. The prey have fangs that inject venom and silk that they can use to get you entangled.

Spiders that hunt other spiders need to have some strategy toward getting around this, and it seems that this family has evolved the highly maneuverable chelicerae that are really long, and they attack at a distance, and that’s the strategy they’re using.

And how do you get samples of these spiders when you’re in the rain forest in Madagascar?

You collect the spiders that are in the vegetation either by walking around at night and just observing them, or you take a white sheet that is held stiff by pieces of wood. You take a stick and you beat vegetation, and the spiders fall out onto that.

And then there are species that are very cryptic and live down in the leaf litter. I collect them by sifting litter. I have a tool called a litter-sifter that I shake, and I get concentrated leaf litter that I can spread out on a sheet and sort through by hand. Or I put it in another trap that dries the litter out, and the spiders fall down to the bottom.

And do you use tweezers or do you grab them with your fingers?

You can’t grab them with your fingers or a tweezer, because spiders are quite delicate. Arachnologists use an aspirator, and they actually suck them up. But there’s a filter. So, you suck them up and then you blow them out into another tube.