Five new species of armored spiders have been discovered in southeast China, at a unique location called South China Kurst.
Armored spiders are small to medium-sized insects, and normally live among soil and leaves. These newly-discovered species are unusual for a number of reasons. First, they live in caves, but the peculularities of these new species do not end there.
Armored spiders, or Tetrablemmidae, get their name from the design seen on their abdomen, which resembles human armor. This type of spider does not normally build webs.
"A few species are cavernicolous or occur under bark, whereas a species of Shearella lives mainly in dry, sandy, coastal habitats. Very little is known about the behaviour of Tetrablemmids. One species, Brignoliella vulgaris, has been observed to construct a dense sheet web on the surface of dry leaves, with the egg-sac attached to the center of the web," wrote researchers in the accompanying article.
Two of the newly-discovered spiders only have four eyes. They are members of the genus Tetrablemma. The lack of light in these caves likely led the species to lose their additional eyes. This is common among cave-dwelling species. The tiny creatures were only about 1/12th of an inch across, and easily hid among mosses, leaves and other debris. When researchers examined 2,000 nearby caves, they found hundreds of the spiders living in the darkness.
The area where the spiders were discovered is known for its karst landscape. These are geological formations created in dissolution of soluble bedrock, like gypsum and limestone. Those features provide many wet, dark areas for the spiders to thrive. The South China Karst is liisted as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The feature spans over three provinces in China, Guangxi, Guizhou, and Yunnan. The area is considered to be one of the world's greatest areas for biodiversity.
Discovery of the new spider species was led by Shuqiang Li, a zoology professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2013, Li and his team found one of the smallest spiders known, measuring just 1/30th of an inch in length.
In just the last ten years, biologists have discovered 2,000 new species of spider living in China. Just 2,300 different species of Chinese spiders were known until a decade ago. That means the number of known species in the country have almost doubled in just ten years.
Discovery of the new species of armored spiders was detailed in the open access journal ZooKeys.
