On the Brink extinction 4: Rameshwaram Parachute Spider

Rameshwaram Parachute Spider

Poecilotheria hanumavilasumica

BEST SEEN AT: Rameshwaram
STATUS: Critically endangered
GOOD TO KNOW: Males, beware! Post-copulating, the female might make a meal of the male spider

THIS EIGHT-LEGGED hairy creature that people love to hate helps get the food on your table — spiders play an important role as biological control systems in agriculture. Which is why you should be worried that less than 500 of the Parachute Spider, a species of Indian tarantula, remain.

They are found only on the island of Rameshwaram, in Tamil Nadu, where they occur in an area of less than 100 sq kms, of which only six sq kms are actually occupied by the species. The Rameshwaram Parachute Spider lives in mixed deciduous woodlands and palm, casuarina and tamarind plantations. Its habitat has been destroyed almost completely. An area that was known to have 70 such spiders was razed to construct tourism resorts and the like, thereby annihilating that population. Tarantulas are traditionally much sought after in the pet trade, but this spider is traded in limited numbers — but even that is reducing its already precarious population.

PRERNA SINGH BINDRA