Dr Simon Pollard is a spider biologist and award-winning natural history photographer and writer. He has written and illustrated a number of childrens books in New Zealand and the United States and has twice won the LIANZA Elsie Locke non-fiction book of the year. In 2017 his book was shortlisted for the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. Simon has also been an advisor, scriptwriter and presenter on a number of natural history documentaries, including the BBCs Planet Earth. In 2007 he was awarded the New Zealand Association of Scientists Science Communicator of the Year Award. He is a former curator of Invertebrate Zoology at Canterbury Museum and adjunct associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Canterbury.