This was our last full day in Barbados. We didn't go to the nature reserve in the north of the island. After the big wedding yesterday, involving ten hours of socializing and dancing, we decided to keep this day simple and chill. Tomorrow we have two flights to get home to our cats and arachnids.

Tidal spray crab (Plagusia depressa), a cosmotropical species that inhabits waved-washed rocks in the intertidal zone of seashores. These were clinging remarkably to the wet substrate in the splash zone despite the pounding surf. #Barbados

Our friends' wedding yesterday was on a cliff overlooking the ocean. The ceremony was outdoors and managed to find a perfect interval between dark tropical rainshowers rolling in from the sea. The clouds kept the temperature down, and the stormy sky at sea made a picturesque backdrop. #Barbados

Last night I learned that blackback land crabs can climb walls. #Barbados

Just took a June bug to the face like a proper omen.

Last night I had better luck with spidering. During daytime reconnaissance, I found that the corner of the resort with tennis courts has no lights and is rimmed with vegetation and limestone walls. It was pitch-dark at night. I found the tropical orbweavers described in an earlier post. #Barbados

Barbados comes alive at night. Two land-crab species: on the left, the Caribbean land hermit crab (Coenobita clypeatus), about the size of a pear; on the right, a female (top) and male blackback land crab (Hartnollius lateralis), roughly tarantula-sized.

Success: a neotropical orbweaver spider of a species that is new to me (Metepeira compsa). I found her at night in an aggregation of orb webs with several others of her species, which occurs mainly here in the islands of the Lesser Antilles. #Barbados

The Barbados resort map labels the Atlantic Ocean as just "The Sea," which I suppose is fair. I mean get a life, mon, it's de only damn sea around here, so what de hell does it matter

Last night we had dinner with all of our friends. Later I went out with my headlamp but found no arachnids or even insects. There are relatively wild patches with limestone karst rocks, but I think the overall local environs are too disturbed. Cats prowl all over the campus of the resort. #Barbados

Behold! Brain coral in the exact size and shape (and probably weight) of an adult human brain. #Barbados

Greetings from Barbados. The view from our hotel room, looking southeast into the open Atlantic. In this direction there is nothing but ocean between here and Namibia.

Cats of Barbados enjoying their free time

We arrived safely in Barbados. It was a long and tedious trip on two flights, and I miss our cats, but otherwise things are fine. Many of our friends are here for the wedding, and it's nice to have familiar people in such a faraway place. I also met a rusty millipede (Trigoniulus corallinus).

The airport sign that tells you not to ride the baggage carousel just makes me want to ride it more

Having done a decent amount of travel, I've come to dislike commercial aviation for both personal and environmental reasons. However, good friends are having their wedding in Barbados, so off we go. While I'm there I intend to find tropical spider species I haven't yet met. Trip updates will ensue.

Just had a chat with a raccoon in broken raccoon because why not

"Now look here. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU IDIOTS?" Like a lightning bolt of truth, Benny Rubin cuts the crap and voices the fundamental question about the Three Stooges. #MeTVThreeStooges

"We're natural-born tax experts!" Nope, nothing good is gonna come of that. #MeTVThreeStooges

"Hey fellas, my hotdog ran away." 😂 #MeTVThreeStooges

The Three Stooges struggle so much with basic functioning that they can't even hang out at home without repeatedly getting into weird and stupid predicaments. (Relatable.) #MeTVThreeStooges

I do enjoy that Shemp intends to claim 11 dependents on his tax return: "my ex-wife and 10 bartenders." #MeTVThreeStooges

The bit where Moe works Larry's abdominal zipper is brutal. #MeTVThreeStooges

After Larry and Shemp mistakenly fire arrows into Moe's ass in the undergrowth, they just flee in terror instead of seeing whether he's all right. It's a case study in what happens when you rule with fear. #MeTVThreeStooges

My kind of home DIY show. #MeTVThreeStooges

"Where's Curly?" "Well, it started with the cement." Moe casually starts explaining Curly's apparent death to his apparent widow. #MeTVThreeStooges

"You got nothing to worry about... Dynamite always blows down." 😂 #MeTVThreeStooges

"Woooo! Get it out." I do enjoy that this incident happens for absolutely no story-related reason at all. #MeTVThreeStooges

"Gentlemen, I'm mortified. I'm at a loss for adjectives." 😂 #MeTVThreeStooges

Forget happy hour. We are doing GARGOYLE HOUR: hanging off of cathedral ledges at dusk and terrorizing the locals

Tonight I'm reading a scientific paper on a species of huntsman spider in Madagascar that inhabits rainforest trees like a monkey. Look at these little bastards. (The images, clockwise, show a female in a tree crown, the female eyes, the male eyes, and a male on the forest leaf-litter.)

Whenever this scorpion species is referenced, I am NOT mature enough to handle the associated trio of Turkish naming authorities

I'm reading a paper by Turkish and Syrian researchers on the scorpion fauna of Syria. In one passage, they rather mischievously say a species was described "from the western region of the Dead Sea (Palestine)" and that it "is distributed across Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and Syria."

Touching grass by lying face-down on a lawn

In World Cup terms, scrappy Iran held heavily favored USA to a 0-0 draw for 90+ minutes and then scored just before the final whistle to pull off a stunning upset

Now I'm reading about a newly discovered species of scavenger amphipod collected at the Porcupine Abyssal Plain Sustained Observatory, located in the northeast Atlantic (48°50'N, 16°30'W) at a water depth of 4850 meters (3 miles), and it sounds nice down there

I'm reading a scientific paper about newly discovered spider species in Morocco. The researchers named one Echemus amicitiae. "The specific epithet [amicitiae = "friendship"] is a noun which refers to the strong bonds that have grown between the team members over the course of our expeditions." Aw.

Over a century ago, intellectuals pondered what we humans of the future, freed from daily physical toil by the convenience of advanced technologies, would do with "the problem of leisure." Anxiety, depression, and drugs, that's what.

I think of myself as a relatively civilized person until I have to change my shirt every night after eating dinner

If you are what you eat I'm about 40% cat hair

My enemy's enemy is my colleague, not my friend. That's strictly a business relationship.

I dislike the expression "MAGAts" because it casts aspersion on maggots, the larvae of blow flies and flesh flies, which are ecologically vital and wonderful. They are essential decomposers and recyclers of dead vertebrates in most terrestrial ecosystems.

I judge people not by their looks or money but by their reaction to a sudden insect in the face

I want people I know to adore me and strangers to fear me, and I'm not really nailing either

I'll never meet any of you unless we end up in the same gulag

I'm sorry, but who the hell displays a suit of medieval armor with a loaded crossbow ready to fire? 😂 #MeTVThreeStooges

I just can't with this bit. 😂 #MeTVThreeStooges

Shemp floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee. #MeTVThreeStooges