Fiona Cross's guest appearances

Fiona Cross

"The Commute" Podcast

Spit and Twitches: The Animal Cognition Podcast

Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture

John McAfee

Joe Vitale

Lanny Cordola

Jack Carr

Jimmy Carter

William Parker

Lindsay Buroker

Andrew Stanton

Gordon Ramsay

Matthew Murphy

Salman Rushdie

Dustin Wilson

Doug Smith

Greg Davis

Jinho Choi

OwlTail

OK, look, I won't lie, I do love talking to all of the people who have come on the podcast. But, there is one person I've been hoping to talk to since way back in Season 1. It's FIONA CROSS!Fiona got her BSc (Hons) in Psychology in 2001 before she began working with spiders and then she got her MSc (with Distinction) in Zoology in 2003 and her PhD in Zoology in 2009, with all three degrees being at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. Dr. Cross first went to Kenya to work with spiders in 2006, and has been a Visiting Scientist at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (in Kenya) since 2010. Her research interests include selective attention, working memory, expectancy violation, and problem solving by spiders. Fiona never used to think that spiders could be particularly interesting, but she has since learned that spiders can do many remarkable things that could keep a person awake at night.Dr. Cross has 46 publications, and her work has featured in many news sources including The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, BBC, The Guardian, The New Zealand Herald, and Radio New Zealand. Fiona is sorta famous really, to quote her 'I got a fright when I first discovered there is a Wikipedia page about me, and I had to sit down when I discovered that a video about me had been viewed 12,000 times in one day'.  (BTW, that fame is well deserved, she rocks).  As an aside, there used to e a wikipedia page about me, but it was deleted because I suck....She loves to communicate science, and has so far organized three of her own international speaking tours (one in the UK and two in North America). COVID permitting, she hopes to run a spider event for children at the Christchurch public library in October (the month of the year that arachnologists affectionately refer to as ‘Arachtober’). She's also keen on writing for all ages.You can learn more about her and her work at her website (www.doctorspider.net).mp3 download

OK, look, I won't lie, I do love talking to all of the people who have come on the podcast. But, there is one person I've been hoping to talk to since way back in Season 1. It's FIONA CROSS! Fiona got her BSc (Hons) in Psychology in 2001 before she began working with spiders and then she got her MSc (with Distinction) in Zoology in 2003 and her PhD in Zoology in 2009, with all three degrees being at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. Dr. Cross first went to Kenya to work with spiders in 2006, and has been a Visiting Scientist at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (in Kenya) since 2010. Her research interests include selective attention, working memory, expectancy violation, and problem solving by spiders. Fiona never used to think that spiders could be particularly interesting, but she has since learned that spiders can do many remarkable things that could keep a person awake at night. Dr. Cross has 46 publications, and her work has featured in many news sources including The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, BBC, The Guardian, The New Zealand Herald, and Radio New Zealand. Fiona is sorta famous really, to quote her 'I got a fright when I first discovered there is a Wikipedia page about me, and I had to sit down when I discovered that a video about me had been viewed 12,000 times in one day'.  (BTW, that fame is well deserved, she rocks).  As an aside, there used to e a wikipedia page about me, but it was deleted because I suck.... She loves to communicate science, and has so far organized three of her own international speaking tours (one in the UK and two in North America). COVID permitting, she hopes to run a spider event for children at the Christchurch public library in October (the month of the year that arachnologists affectionately refer to as ‘Arachtober’). She's also keen on writing for all ages. You can learn more about her and <a href="http://davebrodbeck.com/storage/spit/CrossJackson.2014.WM.Portia.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">her</a> <a href="http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royfocus/7/3/20160035.full.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">work</a> at her website (<a href="http://www.doctorspider.net/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.doctorspider.net</a>). <a href="http://archive.org/download/spit-25/Spit25.mp3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">mp3 download</a>

Episode 25 (Season 2, Episode 6) - Fiona Cross

World-renowned spider expert, Dr. Fiona Cross, joins us from New Zealand to discuss the things she loves best: SPIDERS! A wonderful Halloween guest with charm, warmth... and an affection for things that make everyone else run screaming! Listen and learn, as Dr. Spider (as she prefers to be called) tries to convince us that spiders a cute, awesome -- and an important part of the world's ecosystem!

Arachnologist (Spider Expert), Dr. Fiona Cross

Jumping spiders (family Salticidae) have unique, complex eyes and a capacity for spatial vision exceeding that for any other animals of similar size. Most salticid species prey on insects but some species from a subfamily, Spartaeinae, are known to express an active preference for other spiders as prey (‘araneophagy’). We can gain important insights into animal cognition by exploring how these species use strategies for targeting this dangerous type of prey. For instance, studies using expectancy violation methods have shown that one of these spartaeine species, Portia africana, works with representations of different types of prey spiders. It also plans detours for reaching vantage points for capturing prey, and can decide ahead of time whether a detour is necessary. Moreover, new expectancy-violation experiments have shown that Portia africana represents the number of prey in a scene; P. africana becomes less inclined to complete a detour path if it encounters a different number of prey from what it had seen beforehand.

Jumping spiders (family Salticidae) have unique, complex eyes and a capacity for spatial vision exceeding that for any other animals of similar size. Most salticid species prey on insects but some species from a subfamily, Spartaeinae, are known to express an active preference for other spiders as prey (‘araneophagy’). We can gain important insights into animal cognition by exploring how these species use strategies for targeting this dangerous type of prey. For instance, studies using expectancy violation methods have shown that one of these spartaeine species, Portia africana, works with representations of different types of prey spiders. It also plans detours for reaching vantage points for capturing prey, and can decide ahead of time whether a detour is necessary. Moreover, new expectancy-violation experiments have shown that Portia africana represents the number of prey in a scene; P. africana becomes less inclined to complete a detour path if it encounters a different number of prey from what it had seen beforehand.

Lunch | Fiona Cross | Spider Cognition: Insights from Miniature Brains