SIGHTING OF NILGIRI LARGE BURROWING SPIDER Haploclastus nilgirinus Pocock, 1899 FROM NILGIRIS, WESTERN GHATS, INDIA
Spiders are an important group of generalised predators in the world. They are the largest order of Arachnids and rank seventh in the total species diversity among all the other groups of organisms (Sebastian & Peter, 2009). As many as 43678 spider species are known in the world (Platnick, 2012) and in India, 1685 spider species from 438 genera have been reported till date (Keswani et al., 2012). The present
knowledge on the spiders of Western Ghats remains confined
to the works of Pocock (1900), Hirst (1909), Gravely (1935), Sherriffs (1927), and Sinha (1951).
Recently Smith (2004), Sugumaran et al., (2005), and Wankhade et al. (2012) tried to document
the diversity of spider fauna in and around Western Ghats. Due to the high species endemism,
Western Ghats are listed in the 34 ‘Biodiversity Hotspots’ of the world (Mittermeier et al., 2005).
This present note discusses the poorly known Nilgiri Large Burrowing Spider Haploclastus
nilgirinus Pocock, 1899 from Nilgiris, Western Ghats.
