May 21, 2022 05:23 PM
(This post was last modified: May 21, 2022 05:26 PM by C C.)
The Black Market Is Crawling With Spiders, New Study Finds
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new...180980122/
INTRO: A team of researchers has found that online spider sales are gaining popularity, and in light of this, the scientists are calling for greater attention and research focused on arachnid conservation.
For the new study published in Communications Biology, the team analyzed listings of arachnids for sale online and on the LEMIS and CITES trade databases. They found that millions of individuals and more than 1,200 species of spiders, scorpions and other arachnids were involved in the wildlife trade between 2000 and 2021.
“Arachnids are being massively traded,” Alice Hughes, a conservation biologist at the University of Hong Kong and co-author on the paper, tells the New York Times’ Emily Anthes. “And it seems to be going completely under the radar.”
Sixty-seven percent of these arachnids are coming directly from the wild, per the study. “They’re just being removed willy-nilly in large numbers,” Anne Danielson-Francois, an arachnologist and behavioral ecologist at the University of Michigan-Dearborn who was not involved in the research, tells the Times. “They’re not this unlimited resource.”
The authors write that invertebrates are often smuggled because they are small and easy to conceal. Thermal cameras or x-ray technology used to detect vertebrates doesn’t work for most invertebrate species.
Arachnids have become popular pets, especially because they don’t require much space, per the study. But global assessments of wildlife trade have not included invertebrates, which the authors say hinders conservation efforts... (MORE - details)
RELATED: Ten most poisonous spiders in the world
RELATED (scivillage): Are people swapping their cats & goldfish for praying mantises?
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new...180980122/
INTRO: A team of researchers has found that online spider sales are gaining popularity, and in light of this, the scientists are calling for greater attention and research focused on arachnid conservation.
For the new study published in Communications Biology, the team analyzed listings of arachnids for sale online and on the LEMIS and CITES trade databases. They found that millions of individuals and more than 1,200 species of spiders, scorpions and other arachnids were involved in the wildlife trade between 2000 and 2021.
“Arachnids are being massively traded,” Alice Hughes, a conservation biologist at the University of Hong Kong and co-author on the paper, tells the New York Times’ Emily Anthes. “And it seems to be going completely under the radar.”
Sixty-seven percent of these arachnids are coming directly from the wild, per the study. “They’re just being removed willy-nilly in large numbers,” Anne Danielson-Francois, an arachnologist and behavioral ecologist at the University of Michigan-Dearborn who was not involved in the research, tells the Times. “They’re not this unlimited resource.”
The authors write that invertebrates are often smuggled because they are small and easy to conceal. Thermal cameras or x-ray technology used to detect vertebrates doesn’t work for most invertebrate species.
Arachnids have become popular pets, especially because they don’t require much space, per the study. But global assessments of wildlife trade have not included invertebrates, which the authors say hinders conservation efforts... (MORE - details)
RELATED: Ten most poisonous spiders in the world
RELATED (scivillage): Are people swapping their cats & goldfish for praying mantises?