Seventeen new species of spiders found in Atlantic Rainforest

Researchers at the Special Zoological Collections Laboratory at the
Butantan Institute in São Paulo have announced the discovery of
seventeen new species of spiders in the Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest.
The announcement is the culmination of six years of work by an
international team of twenty researchers from around the world. The new
spiders belong to the family Oonopidae, bringing the known species of
the family worldwide to over one thousand.

Work at Butantan and on the Oonopidae spiders was abruptly halted in
2010 after a devastating fire destroyed part of the institute and much
of its unique collection of some 77,000 snakes and over 450,000 spiders.

Biologist Antonio Brescovit, a member of the research team, explains
that almost two years after the fire the work on the Oonopidae has been
mostly concluded with excellent results.

 “One reason we decided to study this family is that they are very
interesting and quite different from other spiders. Their face looks
like something out of the movie Predator, which is why they are called
Predatoroonops. The 17 species that were discovered have been given
names from the film,” said Brescovit.

“The spiders are small – 1.8 to 2.0 millimeters long – but have
importance for knowledge of the species in the context of their
biodiversity worldwide and in the Atlantic Rainforest. Some of them live
on the ground in the soil. Others can be found in treetops. Very little
is known about them and that is a good reason to do more research. We
may find something really significant,” Brescovit concluded.