Scientist on the hunt for Alberta’s unknown spiders
While most people squirm, scream and run at the sight of spiders, a local researcher has been crawling through wetlands and forested areas across the province’s eastern border finding spiders not previously known to be in Alberta.
Jaime Pinzon, a research scientist specializing in restoration ecology and biodiversity with Natural Resource Canada’s Canadian Forest Service, has been studying spider biodiversity in Alberta for the past 15 years.
In recent years, he’s found close to 25 spider species not previously reported to be in Alberta around Fort Mcmurray and Cold Lake while researching the effect of the oil and gas industry on the critters.
“It’s been part of the last 10 years of my research. I’ve been slowly adding these records to the province, but many of these have been recorded in the last two years when I started collecting in these eastern locations,” said Pinzon. “We are just starting to know what species are in these areas.”
The spiders are classified as Linyphiidae, more commonly known as dwarf spiders, as they ’re about two millimetres long or the size of a grain of rice.
They come in a variety of colours ranging from red to orange to brown.
Pinzon said these species are common in other areas of the country including Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland.
He said they’ve most likely been in Alberta all along staying undetected because of the remote areas they live in.
“I’ve been collecting in different parts of the province along that kind of eastern side and they have consistently been found in our collection,” said Pinzon. “That’s why I believe they’ve already been in Alberta, we just didn’t know.”
Pinzon said the spiders shouldn’t worry Albertans as they’re not dangerous and would most likely try to run from any human interactions.
“First of all, they are way, way too small to go through your skin if they bite you and secondly, they won’t try to bite you, they’ll just try to escape you,” said Pinzon.
Most of the 600-plus species of spiders known to reside in Alberta aren’t considered dangerous. Pinzon said black widow spiders are found in southern areas of the province but they won’t eject venom every time they bite.
Pinzon said it is still too early to know what impacts oil and gas developments in the province may have had on spiders.