Michael G. Rix

Michael Gordon Rix is an Australian arachnologist, whose publications mainly concern spiders.

As of February 2020^[update], he was Principal Curator of Arachnology and Research Fellow in the Biodiversity and Geosciences Program at the Queensland Museum.^[1] He has held numerous professional appointments including President of the Society of Australian Systematic Biologists and Associate Editor of the Journal of Arachnology. He is widely published and cited.^[2] The World Spider Catalog lists 166 species names^[3] and 22 genus names^[4] authored or co-authored by Rix, as of February 2020^[update]. Pseudoanyphaena michaelrixi, discovered in 2003, was named after him.^[5]

His interest in spiders developed as a boy.^[6] He has interest in Australian trapdoor spiders and his research into their decline over the past decade.^[7][8]

In early 2020 Rix expressed concern over the likely extinction of the assassin spider — Zephyrarchaea austini — also called the pelican spider, which is only known to occur in the Western River Wilderness Protection Area on Kangaroo Island, as a result of the catastrophic 2020 bush fires.^[9]