I have been so lucky as to be awarded a stipendiary short-term visiting professorship by the University of the Balearic Islands in Mallorca, Spain. This allow me to visit my collaborator Prof Carlos Juan for 8 weeks from mid October to the beginning of December. I am primarily focussing on a project related to the population genetics of the cave orb spider Meta bourneti (family Tetragnathidae) with the view to shed light on its dispersal behaviour, but I’m also collecting additional data on its web-building behaviour.