NISER student, prof discover new spider species on campus

Bhubaneswar: A new species of spider has been discovered on the campus of the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NI- SER) Bhubaneswar. The spider has been named Salernis're, representing the location of its discovery. This spider species was discovered by Ayush Pa- rag, an Integrated MSc student, and his MSc thesis supervisor Aniruddha Datta Roy from the School of Biological Sciences, NISER. They collaborated with Indian jumping spider expert John TD Caleb from Chennai.

Official sources said the new species was found during a monitoring project aimed at documenting and understanding spider biodiversity on the campus. Parag began the project two years ago and has been conducting regular surveys since then. The discovery of Salernis're highlights the importance of grasslands as habitats for a variety of organisms.

"Grasslands and other open habitats are often ignored, destroyed, and labelled unproductive. They are critical ecosystems and can contain unique biota, as seen from our discovery," said Parag. The spider was found on the grasslands inside the NISER campus, which had not been previously studied in detail for their biodiversity.