The species was named after Greta Thunberg because of its commitment to climate change (File)
Paris:
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg can add to her list of personal accolades, including Person of the Year from TIME magazine, a group of spiders named after her.
Thunberga gen. nov. is a new kind of hunting spider from Madagascar, described by the German arachnologist Peter Jager, and named after the prodigy in honor of his commitment to fight climate change.
“Rising temperatures affect all areas of nature – including Madagascar’s endemic diversity and spider fauna,” said Jager, who participated in several protests inspired by the Thunberg school strike for the climate.
In a study published in the scientific journal Zootaxa, Jager explained that the new genus differed from other hunters in their arrangement of eyes and their unique dotted patterns on the back.
Jager, who has discovered several new species of spiders in a 20-year career, said he hoped that by naming the scary vampires after Thunberg, he could draw attention to the problem of biodiversity loss in Madagascar.
He named a previous discovery of the Southeast Asian hunting spider Heteropoda davidbowie.
Unlike most spiders, the hunter does not spin webs and hunts and instead searches for food.
During his last expedition, Jager also discovered an unknown species of hunter on the island.
Her name? Thunberga greta.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
