I'm an arachnologist studying the biogeography, ecology and taxonomy of spiders (Araneae) from an applied conservation perspective.

Main spider interests: crab spiders (Thomisidae), running crab spiders (Philodromidae), wolf spiders (Lycosidae), ground spiders (Gnaphosidae) and spider species conservation in general.

I'm affiliated with the State Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe (SMNK), but also work as a freelancer in conservation and monitoring.

Feel free to ask if you need an ID for a (legally) collected spider specimen that seems interesting to you or might be an important record for the region. You can send it to me, I will have a look at it. Monitoring is very important for red lists and conservation, but most spider species are heavily undersampled throughout their distribution.

Please be aware of the fact that spider taxonomy is a dynamic and complex field. The collection of voucher specimens for scientific purposes will always be necessary and does not harm species or populations. So, don't be shy and try it (but please get a permit first if necessary in your region). If you need help with anything related to arachnid sampling, feel free to ask me.

Today, many cameras are able to take good images of the genitalia of living spiders (male pedipalp and epigyne). If you want to ID your spider records to the species level, I can only urge you to try this. 99% of described spider species on a global scale are only determinable by their copulatory organs, and this will not change in the near future.

My research: google scholar-profile.

I am an editor of the arachnological journal "Arachnologische Mitteilungen" and a subject editor for the journal "Check List", which is devoted to publishing biodiversity data related to species’ geographic distributions.