Seven spiders and two earthworms that had never been recorded in Canada have been discovered at the Ojibway Prairie Complex.
When naturalists organized a bioblitz to try to identify and count as many different species as possible June 28, they expected to find a new species but not nine that are new for Canada.
“Yeah nine. Holy smokes,” Tom Preney, a naturalist at the Ojibway Nature Centre and Essex County Field Naturalists’ Club member, said Wednesday.
Of the 117 different spiders seen during the bioblitz, seven were new ones for Canadian official records and two were each a new genus for Canada. Genus is the biological grouping above a species.
“In the scientific community that’s a really big thing,” Preney said.
Chris Ho, a University of Guelph student who came to the bioblitz to help look for spiders, said finding seven new spiders for Canada is amazing.
The two new genera to Canada are an orb weaver spider called gea heptagon and a crab spider called synema parvulum, he said. They are a few millimeters long and are found in the United States.
If you have a phobia of spiders don’t worry. Volunteers were searching in the grass and under bark for spiders so you likely aren’t going to encounter them. They are tiny, won’t hurt you and beneficial because they eat insects.
“Completely small and harmless,” Ho said.
Ho, who said he is not an expert on spiders, said people hoped to find spiders that hadn’t been recorded in Canada because of Ojibway’s proximity to the United States. “For such a small habitat to find so much new species is kind of really awesome,” Ho said.
Preney said there may be more species that haven’t been recorded in Canada before since experts are still working on identifying all the insects. Preney said the Ojibway bioblitz found more than 465 species of plants including the spotted winter green, and endangered species in Canada that had not been previously found here.
More than 100 people helped 25 experts find more than 1,000 species in 24 hours, he said. There’s a lot of a microscope work to identify the species and it could be months before there is a final tally.
“The spider guys were so excited they are actually planning a trip back down next month.”
Shill@windsorstar.com or Twitter @winstarhill
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