Small Seminar Studies Spiders

Last year Sarah Kariko '90 didn't even like spiders.

But when Kariko discovered this fall that her freshman seminar, which she expected to be on marine biology, was instead about creepy arachnids, the Massachusetts native was not daunted. She even petitioned to continue her one-on-one class for a second semester and is fast on her way to becoming a spider expert.

Kariko spent last semester learning to identify spider species and helping her seminar leader, Agassiz Professor of Zoology Herbert W. Levi, with his research in the Museum of Comparative Zoology.

"It's like a treasure hunt," she said. After learning which fang-like protrusions characterize which spiders, Kariko said she "really became fascinated with [spiders] instead of having an aversion to them."

This semester, Kariko has advanced to dissection and will begin her own research project, perhaps on spider anatomy, she said.

At the request of Levi, Kariko will stay at Harvard after classes end in June to help host the arrival of the American Arachnological Society. More than 70 spider and scorpion specialists, including scientists from Europe, will converge on Cambridge, for this international spider convention.

Although the official description of Levi's seminar said that two or three students would be accepted, Levi said he selected only Kariko out of the four freshmen who applied because she had working experience in natural history. Kariko worked withmongooses in Jamaica last summer and has helpedraise tamed bobcats.

Levi's freshman seminar is the only one thisyear in which only one student participates.

But Kariko said she is not intimidated workingindividually with the arachnology expert. "He'svery approachable," she said, adding that she hasjoined Levi and his wife on field trips andattended spider seminar lunches with Levi andgraduate students