Species of spider found in Vietnam, China sighted in India for first time
MUMBAI: Researchers from the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON), Tamil Nadu, Christ College, Kerala, and the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, have recently documented the first ever sighting of a spider species, Irura mandarina, in India. The researchers made this discovery while on a routine arachnological excursion in the Western Ghats, in Sindhudurg district’s Kudal Taluka.
“Previously this species was known only from two sites in Vietnam, and one site in southern China,” the researchers note in their paper, published this month in international peer reviewed arachnology journal Peckhamia. The Irura mandarina belongs to a larger family of jumping spiders called Salticidae. As per existing literature, this family of spiders contains 600 different genera and over 6,000 described species, several can be found across country.
Within the genus Irura, this is possibly the second spider to be found in India. A specimen belonging to the same genus was recorded in 2020 in North Lakhimpur, Assam, but the species itself could not be described, explained Rishikesh Tripathi, an arachnologist affiliated with Christ College.
“We were on a routine excursion near some caves in Sindhurdurg district in June this year. We saw this bright, golden coloured speck in the dark and assumed it to be some sort of light insect which was glowing at night, but on closer inspection it was a spider,” said Tripathi.
Researchers later obtained two more specimens (one male and two females in total) from the site, and were later able to taxonomically describe it after laboratory analysis.