Sting hurts, live 20 years: a new species of poisonous spider was discovered in Florida

A scary new species of venomous spider has been discovered in Miami that looks like a "small shiny black tarantula" and can live for over 20 years. The Daily Mail.

Photo: Shutterstock

Scientists have discovered a new species of spider in Miami that looks like a "small shiny black tarantula" and has venom that causes painful stings similar to those of a bee.

The Pine Rockland spider (Ummidia richmond) was first spotted by a caretaker at the Miami Florida Zoo.

The male is about the size of a one pound coin with outstretched legs, while the female is two to three times larger.

Ummidia is a trapdoor spider, in English, it lives in a hole with a hinged lid, similar to a hatch, to hide from predators and grab unlucky prey.

Spiders of this type can live in the same burrow for decades their entire life.

“To me it looks like a little shiny black tarantula,” said Zoo Miami conservation director Frank Ridgley. “Species like these are ambush predators—they create webs in soft sandy substrates with a hinged door on the surface.” They spend their entire lives in the same hole, waiting for prey to fall into their hatch, and then they jump out of the camouflaged lair to grab their prey."

Miami Zoo staff found one such specimen back in 2012 in the rocky pine forest surrounding the zoo, southwest of downtown Miami. The staff took a photo and shared it with the zoo's conservation and research department for identification, but it did not match any existing records of known species in the region.

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More than two years later, another spider was discovered and sent to experts for evaluation.

Eventually, it ended up in the hands of Dr. Rebecca Godwin of Piedmont College, Georgia, who confirmed it was a previously undescribed species.

It is part of the existing genus ummidia, which is associated with tarantulas and was first described by the Swedish arachnologist Tamerlane Torell in 1875.

“I had no doubt that this was a new species,” said Godwin, author of a paper describing the creature published in ZooKeys.

The female has a lifespan of over 20 years, while the male takes up to 7 years to mature before leaving his burrow to find a mate, and will soon die.

“The creatures the zoo staff encountered were wandering males,” Godwin said. “They have a rough shell on the front half and a silver-gray abdomen with a light spot on top. These are really very beautiful spiders.”

According to Dr. Ridgley of Zoo Miami, the spider's venom in humans is identical to that of a bee sting, but it is still effective against the spider's prey, small invertebrates.

"Such spiders often rely on their size and strength to subdue prey, and the venom often works to help break down and liquefy the prey's innards," Ridgeley says. “The spiders themselves can be eaten by birds or parasitized by wasps, but the biggest threat to arachnids is habitat loss.”

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“I was both pleased and concerned about this discovery,” Ridgeley said. “Who doesn’t want to be involved in the discovery of something like a new species?”

He explained that these spiders are globally endangered in their habitat. Locally, only 1,5 percent of the pine spider habitat in the cliffs has survived locally outside the Everglades National Park, according to Zoo Miami, suggesting that it may already be in danger.

“Hatchback spiders in general are very poor spreaders and tend to have very small ranges,” Godwin said. “It is likely that this species is limited to a small area of ​​threatened habitat and may subsequently become endangered itself.”

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