Scientists have confirmed that Australia's most famous and deadliest spider, the funnel-web, is made up of more than one species.
With a bite more deadly to humans than that of any other spider, the Sydney funnel-web had been considered a single species.
However, research published in the journal BMC Ecology and Evolutionby scientists from the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB) in Germany, the Australian Museum in Sydney and Flinders University in Adelaide, has found the funnel-web spiders in the Sydney region represent three distinct species.
Scientists used a combination of anatomical and molecular (DNA)comparisons to study different populations of the spiders and compared newly collected spiders with older specimens in the Australian Museum collections dating back to the early 1900s.
They found three species should be recognized; the "classic" Sydney funnel-web (Atrax robustus), the Southern Sydney funnel-web (Atraxmontanus), and the largest of the three, the Newcastle funnel-web,playfully dubbed "Big Boy" (Atrax christenseni).
Lead researcher Stephanie Loria of the LIB said the New castle funnel-web was a "totally new" species.
"Our research uncovered hidden diversity among funnel-web spiders,"she said.
"None of these insights would have been possible without the use of historical collections and international collaboration.
" Although no human fatalities have occurred since the development of antivenom in the 1980s, co-lead author Danilo Harms said the find may have optimize for antivenom production and biochemical studies on spider venoms. The current antivenom remains effective not only against all Sydney funnel-web spider species, but also other related species, the scientists added. Australian Museum Research Institute chief scientist Kris Helgen said spiders are impressive animals with incredible adaptations, including keen senses, spun silk and a highly effective venom injection system.
"Spiders are older than the dinosaurs. In more than 300 million years of existence, they've mastered nearly every environment on Earth and play a vital role across global ecosystems.
And they are astonishingly diverse-there are about 52,500 known living spider species, and potentially many more to discover," Helgen said.
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