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Prof. Matjaž Kuntner of the National Institute of Biology in Slovenia ( https://www.nib.si/eng/ ) is seeking highly motivated postdocs to apply for Marie Skłodowska‑Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships 2026 ( HORIZON‑MSCA‑2026‑PF‑01 ). Candidates will write up their own project that should align with the research topics of EZ Lab ( https://www.ezlab.si/ ), focusing on evolutionary biology and/or biogeography. Projects may involve phylogenetic reconstruction, integrative taxonomy, a

A fully funded PhD position is available under the supervision of Prof. Matjaž Kuntner at the National Institute of Biology (NIB), Ljubljana, Slovenia ( https://www.nib.si/eng/ ). The position will commence in October 2026. The successful candidate will be employed on a four-year contract as a research assistant at NIB and will have the chance to enroll in any doctoral program at a Slovenian university (typically the University of Ljubljana), with tuition fully covered. The P

We publushed an updated overview of the spider genus Herennia , a group nicknamed “coin spiders” because of their appearance. These spiders belong to the family Nephilidae, a fascinating branch of the spider tree that includes species with dramatic differences in male and female size, notable for building ladder-shaped arboricolous webs. Taxonomy — the science of naming and classifying life — might sound technical, but it’s essential for understanding biodiversity. This paper

Argyrodine kleptoparasites differentiate amongst architecturally different host webs Kleptoparasitism is the theft of resources from another organism. This is a widespread foraging strategy amongst animals. Many Argyrodinae cobweb spiders (Theridiidae) are obligatory kleptoparasites that have abandoned web building, relying instead on webs of larger hosts (kleptotany). Theory predicts that kleptoparasites are not randomly distributed amongst host webs and prior studies indica

Our research team has discovered and described a completely new spider genus and species from Madagascar’s Marojejy National Park: Osmooka aphana . This spider is exceptionally rare, only eight adult specimens  are known worldwide. The first clue came from museum collections in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., where male and female specimens were found decades after they were collected. To learn more, the team from NIB and ZRC SAZU carried out two expeditions to northern M

Spider silks are protein fibers, renowned for their remarkable intrinsic mechanical properties. Dragline or major ampullate (MA) silk is particularly noteworthy for its combination of high tensile strength and extensibility, resulting in exceptional toughness, i.e., the amount of the absorbed energy before breaking, outperforming most biological and synthetic materials. While other spider silks, from fibers to adhesives, also exhibit intriguing mechanical properties, research

Many spider species show large differences in size between males and females, but biologists still do not fully understand how or why...