Planet Four Talk

Help Identifying Different Types of Spiders

  • mschwamb by mschwamb scientist, translator

    Hiya,

    We had a science team telecon at the end of last week where we started talking about what we might be able to do with characterizing the morphology of spiders and the different channels with a version of Planer Four. This is in the very very very early stages of discussion. More like in the information hunting and thinking stage. The science team is starting to think about how we would design a classification interface for this and what science questions about the spiders we could answer with your clicks.

    We'd like to enlist your help in this process. We need to have a broad handle on the different types of spiders so we can think about how we might break the different types down into categories that someone would be able to select when classifying.

    So that's where you come in. Everyone on Talk has seen lots of cutouts from the HiRISE images, and we bet you've seen spiders the science team hasn't come across. If you can post the APHid or even better link the image into the thread by inserting it using the Talk tool (image link tool is to the right of the 1s and 0s icon) for the different types of spiders and channels you've come across or as you see them that would be fantastic.

    As a starter here's what previously the PI of Planet Four, Candy Hansen, prepared for a press release. It's not likely a complete but it's an example of some of the different spider morphology she spotted.

    Example 1

    Example 2

    And thanks for your help with this.

    Cheers,

    ~Meg

    Posted

  • mschwamb by mschwamb scientist, translator

    I thought I'd start - Wassock showed these lovely 'baby' spiders as he called them:

    enter image description here

    from full HiRISE frame ESP_029048_0925

    Cheers,

    ~Meg

    Posted

  • wassock by wassock moderator

    Hi Meg, new game. My 3 penneth worth, for what is worth.

    Don't know if it is significant but seems to me that the baby spiders have a fairly consistent form, generally with 3 legs. And theres an issue with them as candidates for spiders in the early stages of formation as they dont seem to be associated with the fans that form all around them,

    As to types of spiders I'd suggest that you keep tabs on where the spiders come from. In the same way that the fans can be distinctive of an area so also might the spiders. What the surface is made of will likely be important too.

    I think theres also a difference between the classic spiders, which dont appear to have a surface precursor and the lace type spiders which seem to come from pre existihg surface features.

    Kitharode spent some time in the early days kicking classification around so he may already have some outline of a system

    Posted

  • Kitharode by Kitharode moderator in response to mschwamb's comment.

    Nice of wassock to remember the spider classification scheme (SCS). We had a lot of fun with it and I learnt a lot about how hard a job this would be to do properly. 😉

    I agree with everything that wassock says above. Location and surface type (general landscape) would be useful as a context for the spiders identified. 'Classic' and 'Lace' type spiders do seem to be good candidates for looking at the 'origins' of these types of channels. I would suggest (by guesswork) that the baby spiders (often 3-legged, looks like Greek writing) are in the minority when it commes to number of examples and they definately deserve a category of their own. It'd be good to get a feel for relative numbers of babies and adults in different locations.

    There's a lot to like about Candice's examples. The images scaled at 1km across look like a good idea. More chance of catching the whole spider, or group of spiders, than with the P4 cutouts. Is the image size fixed for this exercise, or can it be changed? Candice also notes the difference between classics and lace terrain. But there are different types of classics, different types of lace, and different ways of describing them ... and so it begins to get complicated.

    One suggestion from the early SCS which got some support was to place the channels into one of two groups: Spider or Web. If it looked spidery it went in Spider, if it looked like ropes, nets, or lace it went in Web. (Might need an 'Other' group as well).

    Ideally, as a punter I'd like to do some multi-choice clicks on an image and let the interface take me further down the classifying route if I want to carry on that far. Alongside the image to be classified I'd like to see line drawings, not images, to illustrate the things I'm looking for. If I'm a newcomer, I can click Spider/Web and move on to the next image without harm to myself or the classification. Most users would probably go down multiple/all levels. Not being a techie I have to ask; Can you say anything about options/limitations of the interface that'll be used?

    Forgive my laziness, but rather than post image links here can you visit the SCS thread, page 2, post 3, for some of my examples: http://talk.planetfour.org/#/boards/BPF0000008/discussions/DPF00009es Please note that I've learned a lot since I did these, so don't take my categories too seriously. The images should be useful though, especially the Webs. The interest shown in the SCS discussion bodes well for the popularity of this new venture (methinks). 😃

    Thanks for letting us know about this Meg. Exciting stuff. I'm not sure whether what I've written is actually what you're looking for, but there ya go ... 😃

    Posted

  • p.titchin by p.titchin in response to mschwamb's comment.

    Hi Meg, great project! Where do we start? I have had my own informal names for these cute arachnids, as I'm sure many have. As a start I'll offer what I call 'eroded' ~ APF000260o , and my favourite 'cimexiform' (bed bugs) APF00024cj . ~ Pete

    Posted

  • HMB6EQUJ5 by HMB6EQUJ5 in response to mschwamb's comment.

    Excellent direction in that it will open up the classifying beyond "fans and blotches" as there are more considerations and possible interactions going on. Regarding spidery formations I've too have wondered about correlation between location/surface type as well (e.g. spider presence or absence on high ridges).

    I do not know if the presence of what i've been referring to as "white squiggly lines" on top spiders would be of significant interest (e.g.http://talk.planetfour.org/#/subjects/APF000263m). If that link doesn't work on my profile i've a small collection i've started there for viewing. Additionally what might be described as "collapsed spiders" (i don't have image available) perhaps may have interest.

    Thank you for the update sounds great 😃

    Posted

  • mschwamb by mschwamb scientist, translator in response to HMB6EQUJ5's comment.

    Thanks. The link didn't work i think because the e.g is next to the h but you can just write the APF id number and it automatically becomes a link. So that we a working link I'll list the one you just mentioned APF000263m

    Thanks,

    ~Meg

    Posted

  • wassock by wassock moderator in response to mschwamb's comment.

    Just looking at APF00003oa from your post about the data we now get with the images, which is an area I'm familiar with as it contains the feature I call The Heart

    enter image description here

    Taking a closer look at the spot (as seen in APF00003oa ) and its surroundings we can see that the spider making up the spot is a classic isolated spider with lots of fine, branching legs, and the Heart is made up of several of the same type of spider. Contrast that with the 'buggy' spiders all around it which are much clearer in this image than they are on a lot of the others of the area.

    The whole area that the image is taken from has islands of the fine spiders which consistently form fans to form the same pattern every year. The location of individual fans varies year on year but the overall shape of the feature is constant. These islands of dark fans are surrounded by a 'sea' of the buggy spiders, which don't produce any fans (leastways not in the last 5 years).

    Are the Bugs old, washed out, spiders or are the 2 families different in some other way? My suspicion is that there's something to do with elevation going on, that or there's a difference in the surface between the sea and the islands.

    enter image description here

    Posted

  • mschwamb by mschwamb scientist, translator

    Hi,

    Thanks for examples. Please keep them coming.

    Cheers,

    ~Meg

    Posted

  • Kitharode by Kitharode moderator in response to mschwamb's comment.

    Hi Meg. I've been thinking about "science questions that might be answered" from the results of classifying spiders. Sadly, I've not come up with much. 😦

    There are a few things I'd be interested to know about that might be answered from the project; Do certain types of spider dominate certain areas, or are they randomly distributed around the pole? Where two (or more) types of spider reside in the same area, are they always the same types that group together or can any spider form near any other spider?

    It would also be interesting to use the weather maps (when they become available) to see if there is any correlation between wind speed/direction and types of spider formation.

    Posted

  • mschwamb by mschwamb scientist, translator

    Adding a link for APF00025zq - Pete ( p.titchin) talks (in this discussion) about spiders along a ridge -it's a bit different from the other things posted in this thread.

    ~Meg

    Posted

  • mschwamb by mschwamb scientist, translator in response to Kitharode's comment.

    Hi Kith,

    Thanks for sharing. This is along the lines of what we came up with in our call. We're having one next week, so more to come. We're still exploring what we can do, but what you listed is pretty much the direction we were thinking. We have another telecon next week, where we will talk about this more. I'll let you know what other thoughts come about. More examples of different types of spiders would of great help.

    Cheers,

    ~Meg

    Posted

  • Kitharode by Kitharode moderator in response to mschwamb's comment.

    I look forward to the next installment 😉 Here are some more examples.

    Lace/Lattice types: APF00009kr - APF0000ab8 - APF0000a6y - APF00009oo

    Connected (network) types: APF0000maq - APF0000sok - APF0000sjz - APF0000kqf

    Different types together: APF0000jj1 and some 'washed out' types APF0000m25

    Posted

  • mschwamb by mschwamb scientist, translator

    I should add this lovely classical spider found by Pete-J

    APF00026cs

    enter image description here

    Posted

  • mschwamb by mschwamb scientist, translator

    Hiya,

    I wanted to mention that I showed off this thread in our telecon. These examples were useful and Candy and the rest of the team really liked the discussion and examples. I wanted to let you all know. Thanks for the help and move examples and different types are still very welcome.

    Cheers,

    ~Meg

    Posted

  • DZM by DZM admin

    Thanks for letting us know, @mschwamb -- it's always really nice to hear examples of how Zooites are helping the science teams! 😃

    Posted

  • DZM by DZM admin

    A spider made the Daily Zooniverse!

    ... shudder. I get a real H. R. Geiger feel off of these, especially that one...

    Posted

  • wassock by wassock moderator

    What I find hard to explain with these classic spiders is how the legs overlay one another. The dark one at 3 o'clock is a good example of this; it appears to Overlay the fainter legs beneath without any apparent interaction at the junction. Can't see how a new channel can just cut clean across an earlier one like that.

    UNLESS: The new channel is actually formed initially, upwards into the underside of the ice so most of the gas flow is within the ice and only the lower part of it touches the ground, where it wears a groove which wouldn't care to much about any other channels beneath it - would need a lot of wear to happen in the first season for this to work though.

    Posted

  • Kitharode by Kitharode moderator

    Anaglypta? - APF00024j9

    Posted

  • JellyMonster by JellyMonster

    There is a lot going on in this 'old' image - APF0001bcd

    enter image description here

    Posted

  • wassock by wassock moderator in response to JellyMonster's comment.

    Hi Jelly

    The Giza area which your image comes from is another which has defined areas of spider formation with not much inbetween

    enter image description here

    The spiders here at first glance look like they are classic starburst ones, but on a closer look I think they are more of a lattice type, possibly exploiting cracks in the surface beneath?

    enter image description here

    Posted

  • JellyMonster by JellyMonster

    Hi wassock - I didn't think to look at the HiRISE images. Off the subject but the grey scale non-map image reveals tramlines and something else? (top right)... http://hirise-pds.lpl.arizona.edu/PDS/EXTRAS/RDR/PSP/ORB_003800_003899/PSP_003866_0950/PSP_003866_0950_RED.NOMAP.browse.jpg

    Posted

  • mschwamb by mschwamb scientist, translator in response to wassock's comment.

    Hiya,

    Very interesting. It might be differences in topography or changes in composition or compactness of the regolith. Definitely all things I think we'd love to eventually learn from this dataset. Lots of questions about how these spiders form and evolve over time and how the frequencies and sizes of fans change per region and over time. I think this HIRISE dataset will keep people busy for years to come.

    Cheers,

    ~Meg

    Posted

  • HMB6EQUJ5 by HMB6EQUJ5 in response to JellyMonster's comment.

    Top right on that grey scale, JellyMonster, does look unique (fractured/polygonal area...perhaps beneath ice?)

    I was wondering if those are in fact "yardangs" running over that area in the upper right (perhaps the same features you referred to as "tramlines") or is that a glitch in the image.

    Posted

  • JellyMonster by JellyMonster in response to HMB6EQUJ5's comment.

    You are right in saying that they are yardangs (and yes, I call them tramlines) so certainly no glitch. It was the fractured/polygonal area (I couldn't have put it better myself) beneath the ice which I found intriguing.

    Posted