Freshwater Insects Recover While Spiders Decline In UK

February 18, 2020

Many insects, mosses and lichens in the UK are bucking the trend of biodiversity loss, according to a comprehensive analysis of over 5,000 species led by UCL and the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH).

The researchers say their findings on UK biodiversity between 1970 and 2015, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, may provide evidence that efforts to improve air and water quality could be paying off.

“By looking at long-term trends in the distribution of understudied species, we found evidence of concerning declines, but we also found that it’s not all bad news. Some groups of species, particularly freshwater insects, appear to be undergoing a strong recovery,” said the study’s lead author, Dr Charlie Outhwaite (UCL Centre for Biodiversity & Environment Research, UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, and the RSPB).

Funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the researchers analysed trends in the distribution of invertebrates (such as insects and spiders), bryophytes (such as mosses) and lichens over a 45-year period, to see whether they were following the same declining trends reported in better-studied groups such as mammals, birds and butterflies.

Across all 5,214 species surveyed, overall occupancy (distribution) was 11% higher in 2015 than in 1970. The researchers were not able to estimate the total numbers of each species, but gauged how well each species was doing by whether its geographic range was expanding or shrinking.

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Out of the darkness: A new spider found deep within an Indiana cave

Date: June 28, 2018

Source: Pensoft Publishers

Summary:

A small cave in southern Indiana turned out to be the one and only home of a new species of spider, now going by the name Islandiana lewisi. The dark, wet, muddy cave near the Ohio River was apparently the perfect match for this previously unknown sheet weaver. The spider measures about 2 mm in size.

     

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New spider species resembles Harry Potter 'Sorting Hat'

A spider bearing an "uncanny" resemblance to the sorting hat in the Harry Potter series has been discovered by scientists in India.

The Eriovixia gryffindori, measuring just 7mm in length, closely resembles the magical artefact in the series.

The spider takes its name from Godric Gryffindor, the fictional owner of the hat.

It was discovered in the mountainous Western Ghats region of south-western India.

"We were searching the area (when) we bumped into the spider," Javed Ahmed, one of three researchers who made the discovery, told the BBC's Five Live.

"When we found it we decided that we were going to name it after the sorting hat," the self-professed fan said.

The spider is an "ode to draw attention to the fascinating, but oft overlooked world of invertebrates,", said the scientists in a paper published by the Indian Journal of Arachnology.

The spider mimics dried foliage in order to hide from its predators.

The find did not go unnoticed by JK Rowling, the author of the wizarding books. 

 

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99-Million-Year-Old Spider Mummy Sported Horned Fangs

By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer | July 8, 2016 07:11am ET

About 99 million years ago, two bizarre spiders — each sporting hard, armored plates on their bodies and horns on their fangs — became mummified in sticky tree resin that turned into amber.

They remained there until recently, when scientists discovered the chunk of amber and analyzed the spiders locked inside.

These ancient, extinct spiders are part of a spider family called Tetrablemmidae, a group whose males often have horns on their heads and fangs, said study lead author Paul Selden, a professor of invertebrate paleontology at the University of Kansas.

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But the newly identified species has rather "complex" horns that have two prongs at their tips, which is peculiar, even for a Tetrablemmid spider, Selden said.

"The new fossil is an adult male and takes these horns to an extreme," Selden told Live Science in an email. "Nevertheless, the new species can be firmly placed within the modern family and is similar to species living in Southeast Asia and China today."

Both of the amber fossils came from a mine in northern Burma (also known as Myanmar). Selden met with a dealer who was selling the polished specimens in China, and the scientist and his colleagues purchased those that were of scientific interest, he said.

Tetrablemmid spiders usually have six or fewer eyes, but the researchers couldn't find any on the Cretaceous-age specimens, likely because those body parts didn't preserve well, he said. However, the mummies look somewhat similar to the modern Tetrablemmid spiders in the genusSinamma, which live in southwest China. Sinamma species have eyes on the upper part of the head, so the newfound species likely did too, the researchers said.

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Spider Shows Off His Big Paddle to Woo Mates

by Tia Ghose, Senior Writer   |   January 22, 2016 09:14am ET

Males of the human variety may spend hours at the gym bulking up to attract the ladies, but that's nothing compared to the efforts of a new spider species from Australia.

This little brown spider sports a massive, paddlelike appendage on its legs that it flashes at females to woo mates, new research has revealed.

The new spider species, Jotus remus, can do this paddle "peekaboo" routine for hours, all to get female spiders to accept its advances. The paddle seems to be a way of separating the fertile females from those that have no interest in mating, said Jürgen Otto, the biologist who discovered the oddball spider. 

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Rare spider saved from developers thanks to people power

One of the world’s rarest spiders has been given a fighting chance of survival, after an appeal by developers to be allowed to build new houses in an old quarry was dismissed earlier today.

The Horrid ground weaver (Nothophantes horridus) is a tiny money spider which has only been found in three sites in Plymouth, nowhere else in the world, and one of those sites has already been built on and lost.

Proposals to build a new development of 57 new houses on the second site, Radford Quarry – also a County Wildlife Site – would have destroyed the spider’s habitat and pushed it closer to extinction.

Independent experts at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) rated the spider as Critically Endangered and added it to the global Red List of Threatened Species.

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Australian returns home from holiday with spider in stomach

SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian man had a spider removed from his stomach after it burrowed its way into his body and survived for three days before being removed.

Dylan Maxwell was on holidays on the Indonesian island of Bali when the tiny creature burrowed through a small appendix scar and traveled up his torso, leaving a red scar-like trail from his navel to his chest.

Lifting his shirt, Maxwell told an Australian television network "that's where it actually burrowed underneath my skin".

While still in Bali, Maxwell visited a local medical center and was prescribed an antihistamine for an insect bite.

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A new spider species from Mexico uses soil particles for camouflage

Scientists discover and describe a new species of spider from Mexico. The new species belongs to the enigmatic family Paratropididae that is distinguished by representatives who possess unique camouflaging abilities. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Like all species form the family the new species Paratropis tuxtlensis has its entire body encrusted with soil particles. The encrusted soil on the exoskeleton could provide protection from predators or serve as camouflage to deceive their prey. The encrusted soil particles are because this species has glandular pores in the cuticle and their secretion help to stick the soil particles. These spiders are very cryptic, which coupled with lack of movement when exposed makes them quite difficult to find and collect.

The specific name of the new species Paratropis tuxtlensis refers to the type locality: Estación de Biología Tropical "Los Tuxtlas", Veracruz, Mexico. The species is known only from the region around the type locality in the Volcán San Martin Biosphere Reserve.

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Ancient spider-like arachnid revealed in x-rays

A 305-million-year-old harvestman fossil, ancestor of modern day arachnids, is more closely relates to the scorpion than spiders. Scientists discovered unusual features: it has 2 sets of eyes on the center and lateral sides of the body.

Credit: University of Manchester and American Museum of Natural History

New Spider Species Bagged By Students On Field Course

As a spin-off (pun intended) of their Tropical Biodiversity course in Malaysian Borneo, a team of biology students discover a new spider species, build a makeshift taxonomy lab, write a joint publication and send it off to a major taxonomic journal.

Discovering a new spider species was not what she had anticipated when she signed up for her field course in Tropical Biodiversity, says Elisa Panjang, a Malaysian master’s student from Universiti Malaysia Sabah. She is one of twenty students following the course, organized by Naturalis Biodiversity Center in The Netherlands, and held in the Danau Girang Field Centre in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. The aim of the one-month course, say organizers Vincent Merckx and Menno Schilthuizen, is to teach the students about how the rich tapestry of the tropical lowland rainforest’s ecosystem is woven.

Besides charismatic species, such as the orangutans that the students encounter every day in the forest, the tropical ecosystem consists of scores of unseen organisms, and the course focus is on these “small things that run the world”—such as the tiny orb-weaving spiders of the tongue-twistingly named family Symphytognathidae. These one-millimetre-long spiders build tiny webs that they suspend between dead leaves on the forest floor. “When we started putting our noses to the ground we saw them everywhere,” says Danish student Jennie Burmester enthusiastically. What they weren’t prepared for was that the webs turned out to be the work of an unknown species, as spider specialist Jeremy Miller, an instructor on the course, quickly confirmed.


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A Day in the Life of the Mysterious Odd-Clawed Spider Progradungula Otwayensis

Sep. 25, 2013 — A recent paper published in the open access journal Zookeys provides a first-time glimpse in the natural history of the enigmatic spider species Progradungula otwayensis. Lurking in the hollows of old myrtle beech trees and thus hard to collect, this extraordinary spider is an endemic species confined strictly to the beautiful Great Otway National Park (Victoria, Australia).

P. otwayensis belongs to the small spider family Gradungulidae which consists of seven genera with a total of 16 described species found exclusively in eastern Australia and New Zealand. The genus Progradungula to which the species studied here belongs is among the few cribellate ones in the family. This term refers to the cribellum, a web producing organ which, unlike normal spinnerets, produces extremely fine fibers which are combed out by the calamistrum, producing silk with a wooly texture. The fibers are so small in diameter that prey insects easily become entangled in them, without any glue needed.

To add to its mystery P. otwayensis weaves highly stereotyped ladder-shaped webs, where they stand facing down after sunset, waiting for preys which will be caught by using the ladder as a trap -- a behavior which was already described in detail by now retired arachnologist Mike Gray (Australian Museum) for the only known other species of this genus, P. carraensis. A single thick and shiny silk thread is then used by the spiders to provide a zip-line like connection between the external webs and the security of the enigmatic retreat in the hollows of ancient myrtle beech and mountain ash tree.

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Watch out for this rare wasp spider at the RSPB Lakenheath Fen nature reserve

WARDENS at a nature reserve were buzzing with excitement at the sighting of a rare kind of spider.

Katherine Puttick, a warden at RSPB Lakenheath Fen was delighted when she spotted a Wasp Spider earlier this month, which has never been seen before at the reserve.

She said: “I found it. Apart from it being a really striking spider, it was a first for the reserve, which made finding it even more exciting.”

The rare spider is named after the distinctive yellow and black stripes on its abdomen.

It is native to parts of central Europe, north Africa and parts of Asia but the arachnids have begun to appear in the UK during the last 10 years. While they can bite, they are not poisonous to humans.

Staff found the spider on a section of the reserve’s land located neat the border with Norfolk.

This section of the reserve is not open to the public, but it is hoped the spiders may have crossed over into the public section of the reserve.

Katherine said wardens and volunteers are keeping their eyes peeled for more of the insects and asking visitors to join them.

She said her eagle-eyed glimpse of the wasp spider was a case of luck.

Katherin added: “As with many wildlife sightings, it was a very good case of being in the right place at the right time.”

RSPB Lakenheath Fen is located between Hockwold and Lakenheath villages.

For more information on the nature reserve please go to http://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/lakenheathfen, send an to email lakenheath@rspb.org.uk or call (01842) 863400.

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Newmarket/Watch-out-for-this-rare-wasp-spider-at-the-RSPB-Lakenheath-Fen-nature-reserve-20130917060048.htm

The Hobbit and His Spider

July 29, 2013 — The spider expert at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, Germany, Dr. Peter Jäger, has discovered further previously unknown spider species in Laos. One of the spiders, now described for the first time, crawled across his path during the filming of Dominic Monaghan’s nature documentary “Wild Things”, which is why he named it after the Berlin-born actor: Ctenus monaghani. The new spider species was introduced with its first description, published in the scientific journal Zootaxa.

A famous name for a little creepy crawly: When Dr. Peter Jäger dedicates his new, eight-legged discovery to a celebrity, there is sure to be a good reason. In the case of Ctenus monaghani it is the great enthusiasm of Dominic Monaghan which even extended to inconspicuous and unpopular animals such as spiders in his new show “Wild Things”: “He places nature in the foreground in a very special manner,” says Jäger, when explaining the dedication of the new spider species.

For good measure, Jäger discovered the spider on a trip on which he was not only an expert consultant to the “Wild Things” team in the forests and caves of Laos, but the spider expert also appeared in front of the camera with the actor in a river cave. Dominic Monaghan therefore met his eight-legged namesake in its natural habitat.

Read on

A New Cryptic Spider Species from Africa

Mar. 6, 2013 — The species from the genus Copa are very common spiders found in the leaf litter of various habitats. Being predominantly ground-living, they occur widely in savanna woodlands but also occasionally in forests, where they are well camouflaged. They usually share the litter microhabitats with several other species of the family Corinnidae. The spiders from this cryptic, ground-dwelling genus in the continental Afrotropical Region are revised in a study published in the open access journal Zookeys.

This is a picture of a male Copa kei

from Cwebe Nature Reserve, South Africa. 

(Credit: Charles Richard Haddad/CC-BY 3.0)

The number of continental species in the Afrotropical Region has been reduced from four to two, one of which is newly described. While C. flavoplumosa is widespread throughout the region (from Guineé in the west to Tanzania in the east, and from Nigeria in the north to South Africa in the south), the new species, C. kei, is endemic to southeastern South Africa.

The two species represent extremes regarding both vagility and ecological flexibility. C. flavoplumosa provides a useful example of extreme habitat flexibility, occupying habitats from forests to semi-deserts. It is particularly prevalent in savanna habitats on the continent, but also occurs in various forest types and grasslands. They have been occasionally collected in agroecosystems, specifically from the canopies of orchard crops in South Africa (avocadoes, macadamias and pistachios), which is in stark contrast to their almost exclusive ground-dwelling habits in natural habitats. The reasons for this ecological divergence, however, are unknown.

The newly described species, C. kei, is very closely associated and believed to be endemic to the Afromontane and coastal forests in South Africa. The species has a distribution falling entirely within the Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany Centre of Endemism in South Africa, where an extraordinary amount of endemic species is found, with around 30 endemic reptiles and emblematic mammals such as the blue duiker antelope.

Read on:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130307124703.htm

Video: Discovery of the Spider That Builds Spider Decoys

In December, we reported on a new species of spider discovered in Peru. Tiny, and likely a new member of the genus Cyclosa, the spider builds large, spider-shaped decoys — and vibrates its web, acting as a master puppeteer.

Here is a video shot at the moment the spiders were discovered.

“I don’t know of any potential species discovery that has been caught on video to the same level that this one has been,” said the videographer who goes by Destin, who was accompanying biologist Phil Torres in the Peruvian Amazon. “It’s fun to go back and watch the video because it reminds me of how confused and perplexed we were.”

Indeed, the captured moment of discovery includes the following exchange:

“It’s a tiny spider disguised as a big spider!”

“Shut up.”

Video: Destin of Smarter Every Day/YouTube

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

100-Million-Year-Old Spider Attack Found in Amber

Researchers have found trapped in amber a rare dinosaur-age scene of a spider attacking a wasp caught in its web.

The piece of amber, which contains 15 intact strands of spider silk, provides the first fossil evidence of such an assault, the researchers said. It was excavated in a Burmese mine and dates back to the Early Cretaceous, between 97 million and 110 million years ago.

"This juvenile spider was going to make a meal out of a tiny parasitic wasp, but never quite got to it," George Poinar, Jr., a zoology professor at Oregon State University, said in a statement.

Read on:  http://www.livescience.com/23796-spider-attack-found-in-amber.html

Spider Found Living In Woman's Ear Canal

In what can only be described as a nightmare-come-true, a spider crawled inside a woman's ear canal and lived there for five days before doctors extracted it.

The woman, referred to only as Ms. Lee, arrived at China's Changsha Central Hospital of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery on Aug. 8, RedNet News notes. She complained of an itchy ear and was hoping doctors could treat her.

When Dr. Liu Sheng took a look inside, he found a spider living in the woman's ear canal. Apparently, the spider had crawled into Ms. Lee's ear while she slept.

The doctor and his colleagues decided to force the spider out of the woman's ear canal with a saline solution, as they worried that attempting to take the living spider out with equipment would only cause it to drill its barbs deeper, the report notes.

A photo of the woman's ear was posted to Reddit by user Psycho0222. Within the Reddit thread, another user recounts a similar incident in which a spider crawled out of his or her ear in the shower.

Last year, a Colorado boy was rushed to the emergency room after a moth flew into his ear while he was trying to sleep. Doctors tried to use water to remove the moth but eventually had toextract the bug with a tool, according to a 9News report. It came out alive.

As scary as it might sound, insects will crawl into an ear for shelter.

"The insects are probably entering the canal as harborage, for heat, and/or for moisture," Philip Koehler, an entomology professor at the University of Florida, told The Huffington Post last year.

Sleep tight!

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to this image as an X-ray. The camera used was not identified.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/09/spider-living-ear-canal-photo-_n_1761304.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news

Spider eats snake - caught on camera

WHAT do you do when you walk into the backyard and discover a giant spider eating an even bigger snake?

If you're Ant Hadleigh, you go straight for your camera.

The Cairns resident caught a series of incredible snaps after walking into his mate's backyard to see the golden orb spider slowly devouring a brown tree snake yesterday.

"I thought it was pretty incredible," Mr Hadleigh told The Cairns Post.

"A few times the snake managed to get up and attack the spider, and the spider would run back up the web.

"I would have put my money on the snake for sure, especially seeing how big it was."

Read more about the snake-eating spider and see more pictures at cairns.com.au

video:  http://www.heraldsun.com.au/travel/news/spider-eats-snake-caught-on-camera/story-fn32891l-1226332961171

Praying mantis hijacks picture of spider in ultimate 'photobomb'

The intrusive insect took a cameraman by surprise by carrying out its own sudden ‘photobomb’.

A cheeky praying mantis hijacked this photo of a spider (Picture: Theerasak Saksritawee)

Theerasak Saksritawee was trying to capture a jumping spider on a plant when the mantis got in front of the lens to grab some of the attention. 

The 27-year-old from Thailand said: ‘The mantis can eat the jumping spider and amazingly the spider can also eat the mantis, so it was a really crazy situation. Luckily, no one got eaten and they went their separate ways.’ 

Mr Saksritawee was taking pictures at the Baan Suan Rojana resort in the eastern district of Muak Lek. 

He said: ‘One moment it was all clear – then this thing appears in front of me.’

Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/896712-praying-mantis-hijacks-picture-of-spider-in-ultimate-photobomb#ixzz1saWmMPx1