Stormtropis musica. Photo credit: Carlos Perafan.
The stormtroopers have arrived.
Six new species of bald-legged spiders were discovered in Colombia, by Drs Carlos Perafan and Fernando Perez-Miles of the Universidad de la Republica, Uruguay and William Galvis of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
Four of the species did not fit into any known genus. The group created a new genus for them, naming it Stormtropis, after the clone soldiers of the Star Wars saga.
“The stormtroopers are the soldiers of the main ground force of the Galactic Empire. These soldiers are very similar to each other, with some capacity for camouflage, but with unskillful movements, like this new group of spiders,” explain the researchers.
“We wanted to make a play on words with the name of the known genus, Paratropis, and of course, we also wanted to pay tribute to one of the greatest sagas of all time.”
Bald-legged spiders are members of the small Paratropididae family and are fairly enigmatic in the world of science. In fact, their precise placement in the Tree of Life has been a matter of some debate. One of the unique characteristics of these spiders is their use of camouflage, which they accomplish by sticking pieces of the soil to their outer skin, or cuticle.
The group discovered one of the new species (Stormtropis musica, pictured) occupying the highest altitude habitat of any bald-legged spider, at around 3,400 m in the central Andes. However, the authors claim to have evidence of species living above 4,000 m, which they plan to publish in future papers.
They also discovered several cases of various bald-legged species burrowing into ravine walls or soil – the first example of such behavior to be reported. They suggest that this might be a secondary adaptation, allowing the spiders to use additional habitats.
Their results are reported in the journal ZooKeys.