Right: Cyrtarachne keralayensisSudha Nambudiri
07 Sep 2009
KOCHI: Thirty-four new species of spiders have been identified in the Western Ghats in Kerala adding to the rich diversity of the area. It was the survey conducted by zoologist Sunil Jose and a team of researchers of the Arachnology division of Sacred Heart (SH) College, Thevara, that led to the discovery.
Making a detailed paper presentation at the recently concluded 25th European Congress of Arachnology at Alexandroupoli in Greece, Sunil highlighted the existence of the hitherto unknown species and their importance in the Western Ghats.
A zoology teacher at St Albert’s Higher Secondary School, Sunil has been associating with SH College for a few years now.
The study and discovery were part of the findings of his thesis ‘Faunistic survey of spiders in Kerala’ conducted at the college.
"We are expecting to find about 1000 species of spiders in the Western Ghats. We have already found about 400 new ones and more research needs to be done,’’ said Sunil.
Sunil is part of the research team conducting studies on a project `Spider diversity of Kerala’ funded by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), UGC and other agencies under the principal investigatorship of P A Sebastian, head of Arachnology department, SH College.
Sunil says that their prime reference book is ‘Fauna of British India’ published during British India, and their place of reference is the British Museum of Natural History. "Very often the literature will be in Greek or Latin which make the research more difficult,’’ he says.
About 417 species were discovered from the Western Ghats during the study. This represents 25 percent of the total spider species found in the country. Taxonomically these spiders belong to 38 families and 161 genera. Detailed studies regarding these new species are presently being undertaken by researchers at Ghent University, Belgium.
Four species of poecilotheria, popularly known as tiger spiders (due to the yellow markings on the body), have been identified during the study. 16 species of larger mygalomorph spiders commonly known as tarantulas have also been collected.
Though these spiders are considered to be deadly by the locals, they are not so but can cause intense pain and wound ulceration.
Interestingly, even spiders are marked as threatened species. Recently, poecilotheria and haploclastus spiders found in Kerala put on the red list by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) due to their threatened status.
The most striking feature of the spider fauna of Kerala is the high number of new records. 43 species have been newly recorded from India and about 15 species discovered are endemic to the Western Ghats.
About 170 species found are identified only up to the generic level, of which a larger number may probably represent new species.
The study has raised the number of spiders from 1442 to 1656 with the addition of 214 new species. Some of the agriculturally useful spiders found during the study belong to the genera tetragnatha and pardosa.
They are valuable in the biological control of paddy pests.
http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Unlocking+spider+mysteries&artid=sQjTio7iz/w=
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