Principal Investigator: Manju Siliwal

The only grant this year was from the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund for Documenting the diversity, distribution and status of primitive spiders (Mygalomorph) in north-east India.

Surveys were conducted in Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland, Manipur, West Bengal and Assam. High diversity of mygalomorphs was found in Mizoram and Tripura. Many interesting new records and new species have been recorded from these areas. Soon these species records will be published in international peer-reviewed journal.

We visited Sadiya in Assam, where incidence of spider bite had happened in May 2012 and found that it was very much the case of media hyped. Both the persons who died were not sure what had bitten as it was dark in the night and they suspected that it was a spider as they saw spider in the nearby area. And much of the story was created by media. Result of which, locals killed all the spiders in their neighborhood (approx.. 200 individuals) and when we went for the survey, we did not find a single spider. And this year there has been no report of these spiders from the village, which means that most of the spider were killed and remaining are highly threatened. We tried to educate local people that these spiders are not fatal to human being and explained them tarantula behavior and mating season. In case they see tarantula in their house or nearby, they can collect it a jar and release it in nearby wooded area. But fear in the mind of local people have set in so much that it is necessary to carry out long term monitoring of these spiders as well as educating the locals in Sadiya and nearby areas.

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