Experimental Procedures
5 presumably healthy individuals were collected from the same location
as the infected cadaver, and consisted of 3 male and 2 female. The
spiders were housed individually in a petri dishes, each containing a
rolled up piece of filter paper (for shelter) and a small moistened
cotton ball (for drinking and humidity).
To infect the spiders, flies were captured and placed in the
refrigerator for approximately 1 minute (too long and they die, too
short and they fly away) to briefly disable them. Using forceps to grab
the fly by the wings, the insects were then brushed against the infected
cadaver containing infectious conidia. After inoculating the fly with
conidia it is immediately placed in the petri dish containing the
healthy spider host. The spider graciously accepts the meal and is
subsequently inoculated with conidia from the surface of the fly. This
process was done with 3 of the 5 spiders collected as the other 2 would
serve as a control. No preparations to measure the amount of inoculum
were made since the purpose of the experiment was simply to demonstrate
that G. pulchra is indeed a lethal pathogen causing the observed
phenotype.