China News Service, May 23. According to Hong Kong Ta Kung Pao, the Hong Kong Outdoor Ecological Education Association conducted spider observations in multiple districts from June 2021 to January 2022 and found that two new spider species appeared in Hong Kong, namely " "Proximal tube spider family" and "tube spider family", there has been no academic paper document record of their distribution in Hong Kong in the past.
During the investigation, it was the first time to discover that there were suspected spiders of the genus "Gianglossus" in Hong Kong, which was the first observation record in Hong Kong.
The Association launched the "Hong Kong Spider Search Ecological Education Programme" in December 2020, training more than 800 tertiary students, secondary school students and the general public to visit Hong Kong from June last year to January this year for an 8-month Hong Kong spider investigation. investigation.
The survey collected a total of 4,783 valid spider records, including 33 families and 135 genera, among which a number of records of "proximal spiders" and "tube spiders" were found, which were not recorded in the "World List of Spiders" and "Hong Kong Spiders Guide" in the past. There are records of the above two families of spiders distributed in Hong Kong.
The survey also recorded the first observation record of the genus "Gynaglossus" in Hong Kong for the first time. At present, it is yet to be determined by experts whether the spiders of this family are distributed in Hong Kong.
Ye Haoran, a spider ecology researcher who participated in the investigation, said that the "Near-tube spiders" and "Tube spiders" were found in soil and tree trunks in the New Territories and Hong Kong Island respectively. Spiders of the two families are also distributed all over the world and are not endangered species, but they are not endangered. Since there is not much research on spiders in Hong Kong and even internationally, the habits of the two spiders are yet to be studied.
The association stated that the image records collected in this survey also recorded data such as the time, season, location and maturity of spiders, which provided researchers with baseline information with reference value.
The integrated data of the survey provide more data for research on the species, distribution, behavior and other aspects of spider species in Hong Kong, filling the gaps that have not been explored by previous local academic research.
The observations collected from the survey will be integrated and co-constructed to build the "Common Spider Web Pages in Hong Kong", providing a simple online platform for searching and comparing, and understanding spider classification.
Since its launch in May 2021, the website has accumulated more than 48,000 views, showing a positive understanding of biodiversity.