From forest to genome

The happy face spider resides in the wet montane forests in the Hawaiian Islands. Typically we find the spiders residing under large plant leaves, or hidden in the lower canopy. So, field work is super wet and can look something like this.

 

Here is me looking pretty happy because I am not soaking wet...yet.

Usually we visually search for spiders, or use something called a beat sheet (yes, seriously...) to shake plants so that the spiders will fall out. It looks like this (from the Mississippi Entomological Museum):

 

Often we find happy face females. Interestingly, happy face females are one of the only spiders which take care of their spiderlings, so we tend to flip leaves over and find the whole family! Here's a happy spider mama with her eggs (picture from dailymail.co.uk).