This is Ellen Weatherford. I'm here again with Just the Zoo of Us. This is your favorite animal

review podcast. And this week, I'm talking to a new friend. This is Madison Bush. Say hi, Madison.

Hi. I'm so happy to have you here with us. I'm so excited to talk about spiders with you today.

Before we talk about spiders, though,

let's talk about Madison. Can you introduce yourself a little bit for our friends?

Yeah, I'm Madison. I'm an undergrad senior at the University of Wisconsin, studying both field biology

and conservation. And I freaking love arthropods so much especially spiders.

I usually specialize in like ecology of predators and top-down management.

So I do really enjoy the spiders in their like ecological niche.

So I'm always happy to talk for several hours at a time about them.

And what got you into spiders specifically? Were you like always into spiders? Were you like a spider kid? I was not. I used to be scared horribly of spiders, just like most kids are.

Yeah, that's relatable. Yeah. And then I actually, my first introduction to enjoying spiders was I was a huge Lord of the Rings and Hobbit fan when I was a kid.

And still am, of course.

But being introduced to the giant spiders in The Hobbit made me really into bugs and spiders in general. And then I went to college and got to

take an entomology class. And it so happened, my professor was also in love with the Lord of the Rings

and the spiders in it. So I got a good outlet learning about them. And so I've just kind of been

obsessed sense. So you mentioned that you were kind of afraid of spiders at first.

Was it, I would say that probably most people are afraid of spiders, at least when they were a kid.

Yeah.

But was it like the affection that you had developed through Lord of the Rings that helped you

like overcome that fear?

Or was it something else that helped you come around to team spider it was

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