Sri Lankan researchers Naruwan Dayananda and Suresh Benjamin have discovered six new species of spiders endemic to Sri Lanka, following fieldwork focused on the largely unexplored Utivarachna genus inhabiting the island’s forests.
Based on reproductive morphology and the updated distribution of Utivarachna in Sri Lanka, the six new species have been identified as:
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U. boo sp. nov.
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U. haputale sp. nov.
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U. loolecondera sp. nov.
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U. mandaram sp. nov.
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U. peekaboo sp. nov.
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U. upcotensis sp. nov.
The researchers hope their study will enhance understanding of South Asia’s biodiversity and contribute to broader knowledge of spiders in the region.
The spider family Trachelidae, to which these species belong, currently comprises 300 species across 29 genera and is distributed worldwide. In Sri Lanka, four species from three genera of this family had been previously recorded: Orthobula Simon, 1897 (1 species), Trachelas L. Koch, 1872 (2 species), and Utivarachna Kishida, 1940 (1 species). No recent detailed studies had been conducted on these spiders until now.
The genus Utivarachna, which is highly diverse in Southeast Asia, had been represented by only a single species in Sri Lanka prior to this discovery. The genus was first introduced by Kishida in 1940, based on the distinctive Bornean species U. fukasawana, and later revised by Dielman-Reinhold in 2001, who classified it into four species groups based on somatic and genetic morphology.
(Source – Environmental Society)
