Donard Geci fell into studying spiders by accident, but now he can’t imagine his life without them. He’s one of the only arachnologists in the Balkans, a hotspot for spiders as well as plenty of other flora and fauna. It’s difficult, he says, “but you have many things to do here because many groups are unexplored.”

Trapdoor spiders are masterful architects, and there is so much work to do in order to better understand their relationships to one another. Fortunately, Donard isn’t deterred at all and wants to encourage even more scientists to study the amazing quantity of life found in the Balkans. 

Donard Geci’s paper “Trapdoor spiders of the family Nemesiidae Simon, 1889 (Araneae: Mygalomorphae) from Kosovo” is in volume 20, issue 2 of Arachnology. 

It can be found here: www.doi.org/10.13156/arac.2025.20.2.281

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Donard Geci - Transcript

New Species: Brachythele kosovarica, Nemesia dukagjinica

Episode image credit: Donard Geci

A New Trapdoor Spider with Christian Pertegal: available in english and in spanish

An episode with Alireza Zamani: https://www.newspeciespodcast.net/all-episodes/e28-a-new-species-named-because-of-this-podcast-and-another-after-the-father-of-modern-medicine

First DNA Barcoding of Dysderidae: https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5653.4.2

New Eratigena from the Balkans based on an integrative approach: https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5636.1.6

Find Donard on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/donardgecii

And on X: https://x.com/donard_geci

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