We kind of missed the weekend. We both had a bit of a lurgy and spent some time in bed. It rained on and off and then it was Monday. Honestly, I don't even know what happened. Oh, there was one thing though. It looks like I may have gone and discovered a new species of spider in the front yard!
You know those afternoons when you feel too rubbish to really do anything but are just so over laying around? Well, the sun had come out and was just kind of filtering through the eucalypts and down and onto a couple of palm type fern things (I'm such a botanist 😂), anyway, plants near the letterbox, and they were looking pretty and there was a bit of light and enough warmth that I thought some critters might be moving about, and it might be worth poking my head in amongst the foliage for a few minutes at least.
There was some movement. The teensiest bit of movement, that I caught, just out of the very corner of my eye, a strange shaped critter, almost scorpion shaped and then it was gone. I ran the image through my head trying to work out what I had seen. I was pretty sure I was looking at a flat bodied animal, moving with its front legs, which were much longer than it's others, fully extended and it was slowly moving it's tail end back and forth over the leaf. I flipped the palm frond over and began searching again.
Another little flash of white, and I mean little, a couple of millimetres in length and it went up and over the top of the leaf and was gone once again. I really had no idea what I was looking at. At this point and in my eagerness to have another look I flipped the leaf over so quickly that I knocked the little critter off it's footing and I watched as it scuttled off the leaf ... and hung suspended mid air by a silk thread. A spider? A scorpion looking spider? With transparent legs? What the hell?
I yelled out to Matt to bring his camera and he shuffled out sans camera, cue much regret now, and by this time I had noticed a pair of palps and a very, very quick glimpse of the super recognisable eye pattern of the jumping spider. Once I had enough identifiers I finally let the little spider go back about its business. So, at this point I normally drag out the field guides, jump on some favourite pages, do some google searches and then try and seek confirmation as to what exactly it is that I'm looking at.
Once I started doing some targeted image searches, I recognised this spider pretty much straight away, it's a pretty unique looking arachnid after all, but it was noted that it had been identified previously as being present only in North Queensland. One other had been photographed in Southern Queensland and was therefore considered likely to be a new species. Now, I'm in the Illawarra. In New South Wales. Quite a distance from Southern Queensland and a hell of a long way from Northern Queensland. This spider is a LONG way from its known distribution area. So I popped it up on a FB page and Robert Whyte, whose amazing book (along with Greg Anderson) A Field Guide to The Spiders of Australia is one of my bibles, commented that he thinks it is definitely a new species!!! WOW!!!!! (and even if not, what an extension to the known range for the spider!)
Now, in itself finding a new species means pretty much next to nothing, really. For a new species to be recognised, individuals need to be collected and described and named and papers published ... but still, what a way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Can I get a hell yeah for sciencing in your pyjamas!!!
Copocrossa sp
Northern Illawarra
