Southwestern U.S.A. (Arizona, New México): Five days (September 2002), funded partly by New México State University (NMSU), Las Cruces, and partly by funds from the AMNH.  Prendini collected scorpions and spiders with former intern and current Ph.D. student, Lauren Esposito, Dr Gonzalo Giribet (Harvard University) and Dr Michelle Nishiguchi (NMSU), after visiting NMSU to deliver a seminar.  The team collected arachnids in the vicinity of Las Cruces and then travelled west through the Chihuauhuan desert to the Peloncillo mountains and north to the Gila Mountains. This trip yielded about 70 specimens, including eight scorpion species in three genera.