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The ‘Spider Woman’ of Cornell University will lecture at SUNY Orange

| 30 Mar 2012 | 11:28
    Entemology professor Linda Rayor holds a male Amblypygid, a species that made an appearance in the most recent Harry Potter movie. She will be at SUNY Orange on April 11, presenting a free lecture entitled "An Evolving Romance with Spiders: Behavior, Evolution, and Sociality."
    Entemology professor Linda Rayor holds a male Amblypygid, a species that made an appearance in the most recent Harry Potter movie. She will be at SUNY Orange on April 11, presenting a free lecture entitled "An Evolving Romance with Spiders: Behavior, Evolution, and Sociality."

MIDDLETOWN — Dr. Linda Rayor has studied spiders in Mexico and Australia.

She is an expert for the television series “Monster Bugs Wars” on the Science Channel.

When the producers of the Harry Potter movies needed a spider, they contacted Rayor who provided a harmless but scary-looking creature that was technically enhanced way beyond its size.

And on Wednesday evening, April 11, Rayor will be the guest lecturer at SUNY Orange where she will discuss, among a number of topics, the evolution of sex in the spiders which, she states, “is really unusual and very successful compared to other forms of reproduction by other arthropods.”

The lecture, “An Evolving Romance with Spiders: Behavior, Evolution, and Sociality,” is free and open to the public and is the last of the college’s evolution series for the 2011-12 academic year.

Rayor is an arthropod behavioral ecologist, senior research associate and senior lecturer in the Department of Entomology at Cornell. She has a bachelor’s degree in molecular biology from the University of Colorado and a PhD in animal behavior from the University of Kansas.

She has won numerous teaching awards for her courses on spider biology, insect behavior, and effective scientific outreach. She also directs a large K-12 science outreach program that emphasizes backyard biology and natural history in Central New York.

Raynor will discuss some of the findings of her own research on social spiders which “are an interesting example of creatures that thrive in social groups but can also eat each other if things aren’t going well,” she said in the college’s press release announcing the lecture.

Her current research focuses on how large, predatory spiders are able to live in big family groups peacefully and how they differ from other huntsman spider species that are cannibalistic.

Essential information Raynor’s lecture is scheduled for Wednesday, April 11, at 7:15 p.m. in the Gilman Center. The center is located in library which is located at the corner of South Street and East Conkling Avenue in Middletown. This event is free and open to the public.

This program is presented by Cultural Affairs. For more information, call 845-341-4891, e-mail cultural@sunyorange.edu or visit online at www.sunyorange.edu/culturalaffairs.