Experts suspect the spider arrived in the UK on imported plants because it is related to a species which is found in the Caribbean, but it has never before been seen in this country
A jumping spider which has never been seen before has been spotted in the UK.
The miniscule creature is called Anasaitis milesae (Tremough Jumper) and there are no records of it anywhere else in the world. Experts suspect it arrived in the UK on imported plants because it is related to a species which is found in the Caribbean. The spiders were among 500 additional species collected during last year’s annual BioBlitz nature survey at the University of Exeter’s Penryn Campus in Cornwall, The Daily Express reports.
At first, spider experts doubted whether the species was native to Cornwall. Specimens were sent to Dmitri Logunov, Europe’s leading jumping spider expert, at Manchester Museum. It was then confirmed that this particular species was only officially identified in Cornwall. Finley Hutchinson, University of Exeter student and co-organiser of the BioBlitz, said: “The spider was among over 500 species we found and identified during BioBlitz 2023.
“I hadn’t seen anything like them before, and neither had Cornish spider expert Tylan Berry. So Tylan went out and found some more later the same day, and he and I collected many more from tree ferns near Lime Avenue on campus a couple of weeks later.”
With the specimens sent to Logunov, it was then confirmed that nothing matched them in Europe. Finley added: “The jumping spider family is the largest spider family in the world, so narrowing it down beyond that took much longer.
“However, eventually he identified them as a member of the Caribbean genus Anasaitis, but not a known species. So, strangely, this species has not been formally identified in its native range – so the only records in the world are on the Penryn Campus, and another recent record in Penzance.”
Whilst there was no common name for the species, Berry nicknamed it the ‘Tremough Jumper’. He said: “It’s quite amazing that a new species to science has been found in the UK.
“This very rarely happens in modern times as the county is very well studied as far as spiders go. Who knew a pretty little 4mm jumping spider would be hiding in front of our eyes?”
