Kangaroo Island assassin spiders found almost two years after devastating inferno

Scientists says they were almost ready to give up on finding a small but formidable species feared lost forever to KI’s bushfires.

IT is tiny, elusive and skilled at killing prey using it long jaws.

But while these animals are formidable killers, it was feared Kangaroo Island assassin spiders had been wiped out themselves by the region’s 2019-2020 fires.

SA Museum honorary research associate Jessica Marsh has put an end to that speculation, having discovered two of the arachnids in leaf litter on private land in the island’s northwest.

“When I saw it, it was just amazing,” she said, after about 20 trips to potential habitat sites on the island.

“We’d been out surveying quite a lot and I was starting to lose hope. We were wondering if we’d ever find one.

“It was almost like seeing a celebrity, but a celebrity you were worried might be extinct.”

Supplied Editorial The Kangaroo Island assassin spider. Picture: Supplied

Dr Marsh said it was not known how many of the arachnids were on the island before the fires, which had destroyed their only previously-known habitat.

They live in leaf litter suspended in plants and are extremely susceptible to bushfire, fragmentation and habitat loss.

“It’s great that we’ve found these spiders and that it’s not extinct, however, they’re not out of the woods,” Dr Marsh said.

“What we really need to do is put a lot of work into identifying their threats and how best to manage them.”

Entomologist Richard Glatz with some of his insect collection at Macgillivray, Kangaroo Island. Picture Matt Turner

Dr Marsh’s survey work was funded through a Landcare grant.

Entomologist Richard Glatz also has been looking for threatened insects following the island’s bushfires – with 10 of particular interest.

“Five we found and five we couldn’t, probably because we just didn’t find them rather than they’re gone, but you’re dealing with a situation where there are two crickets that were collected in the 1800s at Cape Borda under bark that have never been seen again,” he said.

Dr Glatz said invertebrates made up 95 per cent of the land-based animals in Australia but little was known about these animals compared with mammals, birds and reptiles, which were much more popular to study.

“They do pollination and seed dispersal, they regulate each other’s population and do all this stuff that runs the ecology but hardly any of those things are protected,” Dr Glatz said.

“A lack of knowledge is almost the biggest impediment.”

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