Just a little delayed, after standing in immigration line and showing my luggage in detail to a very polite lady, I got a warm welcome of my friend and excursion guide Edmundo González Santillán in Mexico City. Car pick up, and dinner with old friends... the whole long travel day was over.
Day 1 - Getting specimens of the type locality of Tegenaria mexicana in Taxco, Guerrero. What a nice drive through definitively not stereotypic landscapes of Mexico. Forest on mountains as high as 3100 m elevation. And a lot of impressive animals everywhere! And to top it: we got males and females of the species we were searching for. The female even laid her eggs in the vial, providing the proof of its adulthood.
Day 2 - Visiting the lab of Fernando Alvarez Padilla at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Good to see local arachnologists, who were providing permits and equipment for the excursion, for what I am very thankful, and, what a surprise, access to lots of agelenid material suitable for DNA extraction. Then in the afternoon, a long drive through desert of the state of Puebla to our next stop, Tehuacán.
Day 3 - Climbing the mountains towards Zoquitlán. From desert to oak-pine in high elevations. Besides impressive landscapes and collecting agelenids (probably close to Tegenaria florea), the small villages with its inhabitants will leave an indelible mark in my mind.
So far, so good. We got most of what we were looking for. And in addition to the spider-thing, I got a good impression of the very high diversity of this country... in many different aspects.
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