Texas A&M graduate student Kristie Reddick remembers when she first fell in love with solifuges -- the fuzzy arachnids better known as camel spiders.

She was getting ready for bed in a hut in rural Kenya in 2003 when she heard a horrifying scream, the 29-year-old recently recalled.

"I knew that it was a bug," she said. "You could just tell."

Reddick rushed to the hut where one of the students on the Kenyan wildlife research trip was standing. The student told her he had just been chased out by a huge spider.

She took her headlamp and her net and cautiously went into the hut, where she saw a giant spider with 10 legs climbing up the wall, Reddick said.

The insect, which she later learned wasn't technically a spider at all, crawled up to eye level, reared up on two of its legs, opened its horrific jaws and hissed at her.

"That was all it took for me," she said grinning last week. "It was love at first sight."

When Reddick returned from the trip to East Africa and settled back into life as a college student in Pennsylvania, she realized her experience with solifuges meant she needed to change the direction of her life, she said.

She had already done so once: Six months before she went to Kenya, Reddick gave up a lifelong dream of being a dancer and performer to study wildlife.

It was a critical switch, she said. Growing up in Virginia, Reddick studied since she was a young child to be a professional dancer and obtained a bachelor's degree in acting from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

"The theater just wasn't speaking to me, and I always wanted to study animals in Africa," she said.

She enrolled in a Pennsylvania college to get a second bachelor's degree -- this time in environmental biology. After her first semester, Reddick went to Kenya with that group of students with whom she saw her first solifuge.

Reddick had always been fascinated by bugs, she said, but it wasn't until she saw that solifuge that she found her calling in life.

It took Reddick more than three years to accomplish her goal of making a second trip. Now it's been five years since her initial stay, but Reddick still remains one of the few people in the world to have studied solifuges in Kenya. On her most recent trip -- her third -- she discovered six new species and two new genera, she said.

To hear her tell it, solifuges are fascinating: They're arachnids but not spiders. They have eight legs and two long feelers, which she originally mistook for legs, Reddick said. They have a jaw used to masticate their food.

"I just fell in love with [the solifuge's] attitude," she said. "Bugs are so cool. You can never get bored with them."

On to Texas

In order to study solifuges in Africa, Reddick knew she needed to go to graduate school. But she also realized that no graduate school would accept her without experience or relevant education in entomology, she said.

"I decided to get life experience," she said.

Reddick packed up her things and drove to Florida, where she found a job at a campground for people 55 and older. Reddick catalogued wasps by day and waitressed at night to get by, she said.

When the camping season ended four months later, Reddick learned she was hired to teach at a California school for inner-city kids -- minds she could inform about water usage and flies at Mono Lake, which is an alkaline lake near Yosemite National Park. But there was one problem: Reddick had no money to get from Florida to California. So she said she took a risk and used her last $10 to buy lottery tickets.

She won $250 -- barely enough to make the trip.

Armed with instant oatmeal and green tea, Reddick traveled across the country -- filling up with hot water and gasoline at gas stations across the U.S.

Along the way, she decided to stop in College Station to meet with a Texas A&M University entomologist, Dr. Robert Wharton, who had studied insects in Kenya.

Their interview wasn't going that well, Reddick said, until she told him she wanted to study solifuges.

"He turned into a school girl," she recalled smiling. "He was so happy."

Wharton told Reddick he didn't know whether she would be accepted into the entomology program at A&M, but she assured him she would find a way if he would promise to help her get back to Kenya.

He agreed.

'A lightning moment'

Over the next two years, Reddick kept in touch with Wharton while she was in California building experience she would need to achieve her goal, she said, adding that he later would become her mentor and adviser at Texas A&M.

She worked for several different wildlife nonprofit organizations, but the most valuable lesson was an idea that later would lead to Reddick establishing her own company.

While teaching a class of kids about bugs, three 5-year-old boys of different racial backgrounds approached Reddick with their arms around each other.

One of the little boys told Reddick that bugs were different from people, just like he was different from his two friends.

Reddick said she realized then that teaching kids to overcome their fear of insects and spiders could be a tool to teach them to overcome prejudice and racism.

"It was just this lightning moment," she said. "Fear of anything different from you is really just prejudice."

She decided she wanted to make videos and lead workshops that would teach kids to conquer their fear of things that were different from them -- whether they be insects or people.

Learning about bugs is fun, and kids need to know that, Reddick said.

"Science is dominated by old, boring white men. We need people to teach kids that science is cool," she said.

From that experience, Reddick formed Solpugid Productions with her best friend and business partner Jessica Honacker, who also is obtaining her master's degree in entomology at A&M. Their company provides workshops, museum exhibits and videos for children to learn about bugs, as well as diversity and career development, she said.

Searching for funding

It was the fall 2005 when Reddick was accepted into A&M's entomology program. Even before she came to College Station, Reddick said, she started looking for money to go to Kenya again. She applied for more than 100 grants and scholarships because she wanted to create a project that would go past her graduate studies.

"I knew if I could find a little bit of funding for a pilot project, it would be that much easier to find funding in the future," she said, adding that the odds were against her.

First, no one was studying solifuges in Kenya at that time. Solifuges are hard to find, and Kenya is a difficult place to do research, she said.

Reddick said she then told the 17 funding agencies who accepted her initial application what she planned: She wanted to fly to Kenya, buy a truck, roll over rocks and catch spiders.

She knew it sounded a little ridiculous. And, meanwhile, people tried to convince her to study solifuges in other places closer to home, including Texas, but Reddick said she was determined to return to Africa.

"Some people just feel pulled to a place," she said. "It's just been inside me."

No one took her request seriously except the L.T. Jordan Institute for International Awareness, an A&M agency that sponsors students in international research, she said.

The organization agreed to fund her on one condition: She had to get permission to travel to Kenya in writing from 15 administrators, including then-Texas A&M President Robert Gates. Students are not allowed to travel to Kenya on university-sponsored trips, she said.

Reddick explained her plan 14 times and got a signature from each official, but she couldn't get an appointment to meet with Gates -- No. 15.

So she went to his office and sat in the lobby every morning for a week. She said a staff member eventually took her forms to Gates, and though she never met with him, she obtained his permission to travel to Kenya in summer 2006. Six months after she had proposed her idea to the Jordan Institute, Reddick was on her way back to Africa.

On that trip, Reddick collected 22 solifuges and became convinced she was on the right path, she said.

Six months later, Reddick returned to Kenya with student loans and her own money to conduct research for her graduate thesis, she said. She found 116 solifuges, which she stored in small bottles filled with alcohol. Solifuges are not venomous, she said, but they can bite with their large jaws. Reddick and her assistants had to turn over rocks and logs to pick up each solifuge by hand.

It was hard work, but it well worth it, she said.

Reddick has spent the last six months since she came back from Kenya working on her thesis, writing up what she discovered on the trip. She said she's surprised that she's still not tired of the insects. In fact, she said, her enthusiasm for the large arachnids hasn't faded at all.

Her next project is to build her College Station-based company, and continue research on the Kenyan solifuges.

"I'll do whatever it takes to get this off the ground," she said, adding that there is nothing else she can see herself doing. "There's just no glory in living somebody else's life."

• Janet Phelps' e-mail address is janet.phelps@theeagle.com.

Comments

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2 comment(s) found!

Posted by: On: 12/24/2008

Comment Title: Man you're an idiot
When I was in Iraq, camel spiders were everywhere. I watched one chase, kill and eat a rat. I hardly think one person could ever bring about the extinction of any species. Get a grip.

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Posted by: On: 11/5/2008

Comment Title: With Kristie Reddick's help, the camel spider will become extinct
Since she's traveling the world capturing and killing hundreds of them, pretty soon there will be none. Is this how you "fall in love" with them? If you want to dissect them for studying, just how many does it take?

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