Emma Jochim, a PhD candidate in entomology at UC Davis, has a particular interest in trapdoor spiders, plus a knack for explaining arachnids in ways that make them seem less creepy to the public. She used those skills at a recent Bohart Museum of Entomology open house, and uses them again on today’s Davisville when we talk about spider myths. For example: Many people think poisonous brown recluse spiders exist in California, and they don’t. Nor do you ingest several spiders in your sleep each year.

Communicating accurate information to the public isn’t easy, and our conversation about that includes a post by a UC Riverside arachnologist frustrated by beliefs "solidly based on erroneous general consensus.”