{"id":123237,"date":"2025-09-06T02:10:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T02:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/123237\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T02:10:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T02:10:07","slug":"new-huntsman-spider-discovered-in-iberian-peninsula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/123237\/","title":{"rendered":"New huntsman spider discovered in Iberian Peninsula"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A scientific team from several Spanish institutions, including the Do\u00f1ana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC), has identified the new species of huntsman spider, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/efe.com\/pt-br\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">EFE<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The discovery represents the first record of the species in continental Europe, the EBD-CSIC reported in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>The huntsman spider was previously known only in Africa, the Middle East, and some islands in southern Europe.<\/p>\n<p>The species, measuring over a centimetre in length, was named &#8220;Cebrennus herculis&#8221; in honour of the mythological hero Hercules.<\/p>\n<p>In Greek mythology, Hercules separated Africa and Europe, and thus the name represents the separation of the Iberian lineage of the hunting spider, Cebrennus, from its African relatives.<\/p>\n<p>The discovery began with the capture of several spiders of the genus Cebrennus as part of a cataloguing project (the process of describing and identifying) arachnids from the coastal dunes of Valencia, Spain.<\/p>\n<p>After cataloguing, six adult females and eleven juvenile spiders were identified.<\/p>\n<p>Subsequently, two more spiders were captured in the Spanish cities of Granada and Albacete.<\/p>\n<p>The samples were preserved in absolute ethanol and transferred to the Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona for conservation in Spain.<\/p>\n<p>After several morphological and genetic analyses, it was confirmed that it was a species previously unknown to science.<\/p>\n<p>Females and juveniles from Valencia were collected at different times of the year, in spring and autumn.<\/p>\n<p>The scientific team suggests that Valencia spiders may have an extended breeding season or a longer reproductive period, with several generations per year.<\/p>\n<p>Further studies are needed to confirm the extended breeding season.<\/p>\n<p>The discovery of Cebrennus herculis demonstrates that ecosystems like the Mediterranean still harbour surprising and unknown biodiversity, according to EFE.<\/p>\n<p>According to the same source, the discovery paves the way for future research that may reveal even more unknown species in the Iberian Peninsula. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A scientific team from several Spanish institutions, including the Do\u00f1ana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC), has identified the new species&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-123237","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}