Sitting all Alone Inside my Head

just stuff

[floralls]

by Kasia Cieślik - Kolankowska

[this-is-cool]

The futuristic vehicle and sci-fi mech designs of Lim Philippe - https://www.this-is-cool.co.uk/the-futuristic-sci-fi-art-of-lim-philippe/

[cyberxbattalion]

[156l]

gold bits and pieces // shop

[alohomora-hpgallery]

[elegyforadream]

[imdrinkingyourmilkshake]

[gifmovie]

[spragnion-a-deactivated20240424]

[ecchimaid-deactivated20220725]

[atheriz97]

[devils-queen]

✞ 666 ✞

[devilxslxt-deactivated20221123]

[through-the-thorns-to-the-stars]

[ampervadasz]

[amandakaynorman]

Stanwood, Washington

June 2021

[humblegrub]

I just went on a little journey. Would you like to come with?

While searching for the creator of this image (above), I learned the artist was someone named Mandy Howe.

As an artist, it's important for me to provide credit where it's due and link directly to other artists whenever possible. The link provided on the website seemed to be only to her old Facebook page- I wanted to see if she had an updated art or bug Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, whatever. I was excited - A fellow artist! A fellow enthusiast! Here's what I learned on my search.

--

Mandy Howe was a self taught arachnologist, like so many people on here. She went by Lady Arachnophile online. She found spiders to be beautiful, misunderstood creatures and loved them her whole life, and that enthusiasm helped a lot of people get over their personal fear of spiders. She took up a more serious interest in araneology (the study of spiders) starting around 2004. Her dedication led to her being employed as an independent research scientist providing web-based scientific support in araneology. She was a contributing editor for BugGuide.net, spiders.us (now spiderid.com), among other places. Personally, as someone who is also "self taught", I love stories of other people following their passions, especially without formal degrees.

Then, the sad news. Mandy died in 2016. It seems like the news hit everyone she knew - and didn't know - hard. She was such a beloved member of the North American arachnology community. Her work and photographs have been included in several scientific papers and books. In 2019, a spider was named after her. Epiceraticelus is a genus of North American dwarf spiders containing two species: Epiceraticelus fluvialis and Epiceraticelus mandyae. Pic below is from BugGuide.net.

I wrote this post because I'm in awe of what she accomplished and I don't want her to be forgotten.

Thank you, Mandy Howe.

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TLDR; citizen scientists change the world and being dedicated to your field can earn you a treasured spot in both the memory of your peers and the taxonomic record.