''Eriovixia gryffindori'' is a species of

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 arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...

s in the family Araneidae. The animal belongs to the genus Eriovixia. It was discovered in 2015 in the

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 ...

n state of

Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...

by Javed Ahmed, Rajashree Khalap, and Sumukha Javagal. The discoverers of this new spider thought it resembled the Sorting Hat of the

Harry Potter books ''Harry Potter'' is a series of seven fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young wizard, Harry Potter, and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, all of whom are students at Ho ...

, so they named it after

Godric Gryffindor The following fictional characters are staff members and denizens of Hogwarts in the '' Harry Potter'' books written by J. K. Rowling. The staff and their positions Teachers and staff members The following teachers and staff members do not h ...

, the original owner of the sorting hat. E. gryffindori is the most recent and possibly the most well-known of the 21 species of the genus

Eriovixia ''Eriovixia'' is a genus of Araneidae, orb-weaver spiders first described by Allan Frost Archer in 1951. Species it contains thirty-three species found throughout Africa and Asia: *''Eriovixia bannaensis'' Zhou, Zhu & Zhang, 2017 – China *''E ...

. These spiders reside mostly in the tropical regions of Asia. Many species in this genus group are also known for their unconventional appearance. For example, the Orb-Web Spider from Thailand boasts a bright yellow abdomen, while the species E. pseudocentrodes brandishes a hat-like shape, similar to its cousin E. gryffindori. Eriovixia gryffindori does not eat all the insects that fall into his net, but only some of them.

Habitat

It was discovered in the mountainous Western Ghats region of south-western India.

References

Araneidae Spiders described in 2016 Spiders of the Indian subcontinent {{Araneidae-stub