Six Months of Prompt Engineering: Building Scientific Altitudinal, Topographical, and Geological Visualizations for Spiders

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  Six Months of Prompt Engineering: Building Scientific Altitudinal, Topographical, and Geological Visualizations for Spiders By: Luis A. Roque,  Arácnido Taxonomy Six months ago, I set out on what seemed like a relatively straightforward goal: create better visual representations of where spiders live. What I quickly discovered was that producing scientifically meaningful ecological visualizations requires far more than simply asking artificial intelligence to draw a landscape. It requires learning how to communicate ecology, geology, geography, climate, and biodiversity in a language that AI can understand. Over the past six months, I have spent hundreds of hours developing, testing, refining, and rewriting prompts designed to generate publication-quality altitudinal, topographical, geological, and habitat-based visualizations for spiders, particularly tarantulas and other species whose distributions are closely tied to specific environmental conditions. What began as a curi...

The first known troglomorphic, eyeless spider wasp (Hymenoptera: Pompilidae): Troglopompilus miracaecatus gen. et sp. nov. from the Nullarbor Caves, Western Australia

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The first known troglomorphic, eyeless spider wasp (Hymenoptera: Pompilidae): Troglopompilus miracaecatus gen. et sp. nov. from the Nullarbor Caves, Western Australia

Abstract

Surveys of caves of the Nullarbor Plain, Western Australia, revealed a remarkable assemblage of exceptionally well-preserved mummified arthropods, comprising Araneae, Blattodea, Coleoptera and Chilopoda, all of which exhibit high levels of troglomorphism, lacking eyes and showing a number of other adaptations. Of note, this arthropod assemblage also included a pompilid wasp which is eyeless and brachypterous and unlike any member of the family known globally. Here, we describe this amazing wasp as Troglopompilus miracaecatus gen. et sp. nov., and discuss its remarkable morphology and possible affinities and biology.

Rodriguez, J., Austin, A. D., & Marsh, J. R. (2026). The first known troglomorphic, eyeless spider wasp (Hymenoptera: Pompilidae): Troglopompilus miracaecatus gen. Et sp. Nov. From the Nullarbor Caves, Western Australia. Austral Entomology, 65(2), e70061. https://doi.org/10.1111/aen.70061