\u201cIt just caught my eye the fact that it was different, the size was the first thing I noticed. It\u2019s a fairly large spider.\u201d<\/p>\n
Te Papa PhD student Shaun Thompson contacted her, identifying the spider as a potential new species.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe sent me a message through the app, saying he thought it might a new species and it would be great if I could find another specimen and take a photo of the abdomen, so he could look at the pattern there. And so that\u2019s what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n
The spider was very similar to a spider found in Whanganui called the Cantuaria wanganuiensis, but there were some key differences in the patterning on the abdomen, S\u00e1nchez said.<\/p>\n
Taranaki Regional Council biodiversity officer Sandra S\u00e1nchez and landowner Rob Hooper. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are at the moment trying to review the genus.\u201d<\/p>\n
The discovery meant the arachnid was the northernmost distribution of Cantuaria so far discovered in New Zealand, Taranaki Regional Council said.<\/p>\n
Although it might be a long time before the spider would receive its own name, Thompson had suggested it be called the Taranaki trapdoor spider.<\/p>\n
S\u00e1nchez said discovering a new species had been a dream since she was little.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot describe how happy it makes me, even though I will not be the one describing it. Spiders are not my expertise \u2013 and this is just absolutely fantastic for Shaun as well \u2013 but I am really, really happy that I could help.\u201d<\/p>\n
The discovery was a testament to the landowners\u2019 commitment to preserving natural ecosystems, S\u00e1nchez said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was also delighted for the landowners, Rob Hooper and son Mark, as they work extremely hard to protect these forest remnants, so this is a fitting way to reward them for their mahi.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added that there were likely many more undiscovered species.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially when it comes to insects or invertebrates in general. We know very little so the more we look, the more new species are going to come to light.\u201d<\/p>\n
Everyone could have a role to play in helping in the discovery of new species through documenting anything they don\u2019t recognise on iNaturalistNZ, S\u00e1nchez said.<\/p>\n
\u201cKeep an eye out and take photos of everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt just caught my eye the fact that it was different, the size was the first thing I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[40967,9525,104225,42,132905,78,117,43,6943,17398,3649,30127,40,38,41,39,1251],"class_list":["post-221193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-biologist","tag-caught","tag-discovers","tag-headlines","tag-ibell","tag-in","tag-new","tag-news","tag-paris","tag-possible","tag-species","tag-spider","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}