''Neoheterophrictus bhori'' is a species of

tarantula Tarantulas comprise a group of large and often hairy spiders of the family Theraphosidae. , 1,040 species have been identified, with 156 genera. The term "tarantula" is usually used to describe members of the family Theraphosidae, although ...

. It is native to Parambiculam, Western Ghats, Cochin province,

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Etymology

The species name comes from the name of Mr. J. Bhore, the Dewan of Cochin, who aided

Frederic Henry Gravely Frederic Henry Gravely (7 December 1885 – 1965) was an eminent British arachnologist, entomologist, botanist, zoologist and student of archaeology, who conducted pioneering research and wrote extensively on various subjects during his tenure a ...

in his scientific research.

Characteristics

This species is currently only known from the female. It is found in

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, bu ...

forest, which is unusual as few

arthropod Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a Segmentation (biology), segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and Arth ...

s are found in such an environment. It differs from other species mainly by the spines on its legs; the first leg has a small inner apical spine on the

tibia The tibia (; ), also known as the shinbone or shankbone, is the larger, stronger, and anterior (frontal) of the two bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates (the other being the fibula, behind and to the outside of the tibia); it connects ...

, and the second has the same spine only at an earlier stage and is accompanied by a mid-apical spine and an outer apical spine. It also lacks white

seta In biology, setae (singular seta ; from the Latin word for "bristle") are any of a number of different bristle- or hair-like structures on living organisms. Animal setae Protostomes Annelid setae are stiff bristles present on the body. Th ...

e on the extremities of the legs. It is brown, and slightly darker brown on the abdomen. The multi-lobular

spermatheca The spermatheca (pronounced plural: spermathecae ), also called receptaculum seminis (plural: receptacula seminis), is an organ of the female reproductive tract in insects, e.g. ants, bees, some molluscs, oligochaeta worms and certain other ...

e are thinner than in ''

Neoheterophrictus sahyadri ''Neoheterophrictus sahyadri'' is a spider Spiders (order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of ...

'' and wider than in ''

Neoheterophrictus uttarakannada ''Neoheterophrictus uttarakannada'' is a species of spiders in the genus ''Neoheterophrictus'' from India. It was first described in 2012 by Manju Siliwal, Neha Gupta, & Robert John Raven. Its name comes from the place where it was discovered, U ...

'' or ''

Neoheterophrictus crurofulvus ''Neoheterophrictus crurofulvus'' is a species of tarantula. It is also the type species of ''Neoheterophrictus'' and is found in the Western Ghats, India. Etymology The specific name ''crurofulvus'' is a mixture of two Latin words: ''cruro'' ...

''.

References

Spiders of the Indian subcontinent Theraphosidae Spiders described in 1915 {{Theraphosidae-stub