Can you help?

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In creating LinEpig, The Field Museum utilizes existing equipment and the unpaid labor of associates familiar with the group. To date, more than 290 species (of the roughly 650 described species of nearctic erigonines) have been incorporated, with the assistance of loans of specimen material from several museums and private collections, as well as contributed images from colleagues working with this group.

Completion will require the participation of a number of other linyphiid-rich collections. We are grateful for either loans of specimens or contributions of good-quality microscopic images. While the main focus of the project is on the female epigynum, we have been imaging habitus of specimens on loan, as well as habitus and palps of any males that happen to be included with the female, in the interests of further aiding identification.

Field Museum images are made available for study and reuse under a Creative Commons license; see details. Images by external contributors are fully credited and, while we encourage people to adopt the "CC-BY-NC" license, all displayed permissions are creator-specific and can be set up to meet your individual needs.

Collection managers with reliably identified erigonine females that are not yet represented at LinEpig who would like to assist with this effort can contact the project manager (below). Images of habitus, male palps, or taxonomically relevant anatomical details are also welcome.

Attached is the list of species we are looking for. If you have females of any of these species—or even better, epigynal images!—please get in touch!

Nina Sandlin (nsandlin@fieldmuseum.org)

Species needed