Faculty note: new spider species found in Indiana, Prof. Draney comments

An Indiana spider specialist, Marc Milne, found an entirely new spider species when searching for a male Islandiana cavealis, a sheet web spider species, in Stygian River Cave in Indiana. The new species is the size of a crayon tip and is currently only found in Indiana. Milne named the species Islandiana lewisi. UW-Green Bay professor and spider expert Michael Draney (Biology) said the species can be found on every corn- and soybean field in Indiana. “They’re tiny, so they only eat certain kinds of pests, like aphids, but they are out there. Pretty much every acre of Indiana has got sheet web spiders,” Draney says. Read the full story on IndyStar.