Gujarat: Spider species named after poet-saint Narsinh Mehta

SURAT: A new spider species discovered in

Girnar Wildlife Sanctuary

has been named after the 15th century poet-saint

Narsinh Mehta

.

Scientists, who found the new species, named it Palpimanus Narsinhmehtai in a bid to immortalize the acclaimed poet

“The specific epithet is dedicated to the great poet saint Narsinh Mehta. His belief in equality can be understood by one of the famous poem ‘Vaishnav Jan to tene kahiye’, which even inspired Mahatma Gandhi. The reformer poet hailed from Junagadh, so we named the species after the poet Narsinh Mehta,” said Jatin Raval, assistant professor, department of life sciences in Junagadh university.

Interestingly, the state-run varsity in Junagadh is also named Bhakta Kavi Narsinh Mehta University.

A research paper, which described the new spider species, was recently published titled “A new species and a new combination in Palpimanus Dufour, 1820 from India (Aranei: Palpimanidae).” It was authored by Dhruv Prajapati, from the Research and Development Centre, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore), Namrata Hun of GEER Foundation, Gandhinagar) and Jatin Raval. The paper was published in the journal Arthropoda Selecta.

“In structure of the copulatory organs, the new species resembles

P. schmitzi Kulczyski

, 1909 and P. sogdianus Charitonov, 1946 (in male and female characters, respectively). It nevertheless differs from both these species by a distinct shape of the accessory sclerites in the male bulb and by dissimilarly shaped receptacles,’’ researchers say.

The genus Palpimanus Dufour embraces currently 35 valid species in the world and majority of them are known from Africa, southwest Asia and Mediterranean. Only one species from this genus, namely

P. vultuosus

Simon is known from India. “This species was described based on female only, without any illustrations,’’ the researchers said in their paper.

The researchers have deposited type specimens in the reference collection of the

Gujarat

Ecological and Educational Research (GEER) Foundation in Gandhinagar.

According to a research paper titled ‘Spiders of Gujarat: A preliminary checklist’ published in 2017, so far 415 spider species under 169 genera and 40 families have been reported from Gujarat.

“Of the total spiders recorded from Gujarat, analysis shows that a fair number of endemic species are represented in the state. A total of 39 species are endemic to Gujarat, 150 species endemic to India and 26 endemic to South Asia,’’ the paper states.