Stegodyphus sarasinorum
Why in News?
Stegodyphus sarasinorum is in the news because a team of Indian researchers successfully mapped the first comprehensive molecular and functional profile of its venom gland, uncovering molecules with potential for cancer and antimicrobial drug discovery.
General Profile & Distribution
- Common Name: It is popularly known as the Indian cooperative spider or the Indian social spider.
- Taxonomy: It belongs to the velvet spider family and is one of the very few permanently social spider species recognized globally.
- Geographical Range: It is widely distributed across the Indian subcontinent, specifically found in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Myanmar.
- Habitat: These spiders primarily inhabit semi-arid, dry tropical regions, showing a strong nesting preference for thorny trees.
Unique Social Behaviour & Nesting
- Colonial Living: Unlike typical solitary and aggressive spiders, hundreds of these individuals live peacefully together in permanent, cooperatively built colonies.
- Nest Architecture: Their communal nests are constructed out of spider silk woven tightly with leaves, twigs, food carcasses, and discarded exoskeletons.
- Female Dominated: The colonies exhibit a highly skewed sex ratio where females vastly outnumber males (e.g., a colony of 90 females may only host 5 to 10 males).
- High Social Tolerance: Interestingly, members from entirely different colonies are socially accepted and tolerated by both adults and juveniles.
Hunting & Ecological Benefits
- Cooperative Predation: They hunt and feed communally at night, strategically positioning their massive shared webs in shaded areas to lure diverse insects.
- Group Coordination: They use task differentiation to attack prey; a larger number of spiders will collectively rush out to overwhelm a trapped insect.
- Agricultural Allies: They act as excellent biological pest control agents, actively preying upon major crop pests like rice ear bugs and cercopids in agricultural fields.
