48.000 – so many types of Webspinnen are in the world. Not only that, every year, some to extinction. It is also new. Either be collected, or representatives of your type of store in the archives in natural history museums, to a specialist or a specialist of time and research funds, in order to determine them unambiguously.
Peter hunter is a specialist. His area of expertise are spiders, especially the giant spider crab. From this family, the arachnologist, has described four new species. One of the discoveries shows a surprising specialization: The spider lives in the bamboo culms of Asia, such as the Senckenberg research Institute and nature Museum Frankfurt, working on the hunter announced. The species is only the second known spider ever, whose Ecology is tied to the bamboo. The study is published in the journal Zootaxa (hunter, 2019).
bamboo especially in Asia, a major ecological, economic, and cultural importance. The lignifying giant grass is used, for example, as a regional supplier for furniture and house construction, for the production of textiles, or as a burning material. Even in the animal world bamboo plays a significant role. “My colleague, Dr. Damir Kovac studied for many years, animal communities, associated in Southeast Asia with bamboo. During his research trips with him were always spiders, which use the greenhouse as a Studio apartment,” said hunter.
In General, we saw spiders, researchers are not a stalk of Bamboo
Peter Jäger, arachnologist, and discoverer of the bamboo spider
repeatedly Zoological check and zoologists – even on the basis of genetic analyses, and using other modern determination techniques – the systematics of certain classes, orders, families and genera. Peter hunter had examined in the course of a Revision of the spider genus Rhitymna some kinds of again. So he was able to identify the bamboo resident as a previously undescribed species. “The unusual life of the spider in the Interior of bamboo culms has prevented, so far, we have been able to discover the type. In General, we are on saws, spiders, researchers are not a stalk of Bamboo.”
so Far, two Fund places the newly discovered giant spider crab known: in the North of Thailand and in the vicinity of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. “The reference points are separated by about 1,800 miles,” reported the Senckenberg Institute. It is likely, therefore, that the spider species inhabit other areas with bamboo, but there simply was overlooked.
A giant crab spider, specialized to live in the bamboo tube © Senckenberg
The real Surprise is for hunters in the specialization of the spider on the hollow Stalks. To go to the stable places to hide, the eight-legged, namely, to the aid of their animal neighbors: The bamboo woodpecker helps his work, as well as from bamboo inner hatching beetles. As a larva, the Latter feed on indigestible plant material, pupate and bite as adult beetles the way to freedom. “Lucky for the spider, which can then colonize the protective Interior, which they leave only at night to hunt,” explained the spider researchers.
The new spider species was given the Latin name Rhitymna Gerd deficiency. Hunter honors the Senckenberg-site Manager Gerd deficiency. The other new additions to the spider classification are two Indonesian species from the Islands of Bali (Rhitymna merianae) and Flores (R. flores) – as well as of the Philippines (R. senckenbergi).
