| Activity | Museum Staff: Appointed to Department of Zoology 1973 in the Arachnida and Myriapoda Section; scientific officer 1981. Moved to Entomology in 1990 following departmental reorganisation, until his retirement in 2006.
In addition to curating the macro-arachnid and myriapod collections, Paul published taxonomic and faunistic papers on spiders and harvestmen, and monographs on British harvestmen and north-west European ticks for the Synopses of the British Fauna series. Spiders, however, were his particular interest and his knowledge extended beyond taxonomy to subjects such as their place in literature and folklore, and their relationships with humans – many of his spider stories were incorporated into his Book of the Spider: From Arachnophobia to the Love of Spiders (Random House). He authored or co-authored some nine other books that included guides to identification, behaviour and internal anatomy
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