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.