Three new species of harvestman found in Peru!

A wealth of new species still to be found

August 2013. The tropics, including the Amazon rainforest in Peru, are the most biodiverse regions on earth. A large variety of mammals, birds and insects live there. Many of them are big and colourful and immediately catch the eye of both scientists and tourists. No wonder less flashy animals are being overlooked easily.

Biologist and Frankfurt Zoological Society project coordinator José A. Ocha from Peru and professor Ricardo Pinto-da-Rocha from the zoology department of Sao Paolo University in Brazil recently identified three new species in Peru. On their expeditions the two scientists have discovered three new harvestman-species of the genus Protimesius. The new species have been named Protimesius amigos, Protimesius machiguenga and Protimesius kakinte. Like mites, scorpions, pseudo-sorpions and spiders, harvestmen belong to the arachnids.

The details can be found in the current issue of the Journal of Arachnology

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/peru-havestman.html

Daddy Longlegs Day Care Pays Off in Longer Life, More Sex

Being a single dad may not be a drag — it actually may help a male survive and attract females, based on findings about a relative of spiders.

Single fatherhood is the rarest form of parental care in nature. Still, males are often the sole caretakers of progeny among a number of species of daddy longlegs, relatives of spiders also known as harvestmen. In these species, fathers are exclusively responsible for guarding eggs that females lay on the undersides of leaves; the males remain on the eggs nearly constantly for months.

To see why such unusual arrangements might last, researchers investigated a species of harvestman, Iporangaia pustulosa, found in the rain forests of southeastern Brazil. The researchers inspected vegetation alongside about 650 feet (200 meters) of river three times a day during four consecutive days per month over the course of a year and tagged the elusive arachnids with dabs of paint.

Continued:  http://www.livescience.com/23876-daddy-longlegs-dads-longer-life-sex.html

Giant spider discovered in Laos

Leg span of more than 33 cms

October 2012. A scientist has discovered a harvestman (spider) with a leg span of more than 33 centimetres during a research trip to Laos; this is one of the largest representatives of the entire order of spiders anywhere in the world. The scientist, from the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, has so far failed to identify it to species level.

The reason Dr. Peter Jäger from the Senckenberg Research Institute went to Laos was to film a major TV production. "In between takes I collected spiders from the caves in the southern province of Khammouan", the Frankfurt arachnologist explains. In doing so, he made a sensational discovery. "In one of the caves I discovered a harvestman that was absolutely huge." The leg span of the gigantic male harvestman was more than 33 centimetres and therefore one of the world's largest. The current record is just over 34 centimetres leg span for a species from South America.

Unidentified
Initially the discovery lay hidden among other organisms and was only recognised as unique when sorted and labelled. "In attempting to categorise the creature properly, however, and give it a scientific name, I soon reached my limits", says Jäger. The Frankfurt scientist deals mainly with huntsman spiders - harvestmen are not his particular field. Even the specialist he consulted, Ana Lucia Tourinho from the National Institute for Research of the Amazon (INPA) in Manaus, Brazil, who is currently a visiting academic at the Senckenberg Arachnology lab, could only conclude that it is probably the genus Gagrella in the Sclerosomatidae family. 

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/laos-spider.html