Spider rediscovered in Aarey after 122 yrs

In his bid to document Aarey's colony's wildlife, Andheri-based researcher Rajesh Sanap chanced upon and rediscovered a jumping spider species — Piranthus decorus — from Aarey. This species has not only been rediscovered after 122 years but also happens to be the first from India.

The research on this species was carried out by Chennai-based John Caleb and Sanap at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru. The results have been accepted for publication in Acta Arachnologica, a Japanese journal of Arachnology, this August.

Sanap, who is a resident of Marol, had captured this spider on his camera in 2015 in Aarey Colony and again managed to capture a female spider of the same species from the same locality in 2016.

"We took up extensive microscopic observations of the morphological characters of this spider and then based on the taxonomic drawings the identification was confirmed by Dr Wayne Maddison, scientific director of the Beaty Biodiversity Museum, Canada," said Sanap.

He added that the spider was first described in 1895 by a Swedish arachnologist Tamerlan Thorell from Tharrawaddy, Burma. Both the specimens of the spider rediscovered from Aarey are found inhabiting in tree trunks.

"It is a small spider with black carapace covered in long black hair with intermittent white scales. Aarey would be an ideal habitat to explore spider diversity," said Sanap.