Alireza Zamani is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Turku in Finland. He talks to me about his paper published in ZooKeys on April 27 in which he and his coauthor describe 17 new species of ant spiders from Iran and Turkmenistan! We talk about names derived from the Persian language, collecting spiders in mine fields, names of new species derived from Persian and Kurdish history, and the amazing biodiversity of Iran!

The title of the paper is “Revision of the spider family Zodariidae (Arachnida, Araneae) in Iran and Turkmenistan, with seventeen new species.” The paper is currently available open access in ZooKeys: https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/65767/

To learn more about Alireza Zamani, follow him on Twitter (@PersianSpiders), Instagram (alireza.zamani.spider), or visit his website: http://alireza-zamani.com/

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