Maureen C. Gilmer

maureen.gilmer@indystar.com

Fair warning: This story might give you the creeps, especially if you hate the idea of creepy, crawly spiders invading your space.

A new species of spider has been discovered living among leaf litter in Johnson County. Just what arachnophobes need — a new spider to spook them.

Tentatively named Orenoetides sp., the orangey spiders are tiny — around 2.5 millimeters — and thought to be harmless. University of Indianapolis Professor Marc Milne discovered the spiders on new Central Indiana Land Trust property while participating in a “bioblitz,” an intensive inventory of plants, animals and fungi.

Milne and a team of UIndy students went on a spider hunt during the bioblitz last year. "Spiders are my specialty, so we were the spider team," Milne said, adding he's been studying and identifying spiders for a dozen years.

The team took samples back to UIndy, where Milne studied them under a microscope, consulted his "spider guide" and, after months of research, determined there was nothing else like them recorded in North America or indeed in the world.

Orenoetides sp. like to live in forests, under leaves. They feed on soft-body insects and build small sheet webs on top of or between leaves, Milne said. You shouldn't expect to find them in your home, but even if you did encounter them somewhere, they're likely nonvenemous, he said.

Likely?

He laughs. "They're so small; we're talking less than a quarter inch. Even if they tried, they couldn't pierce your skin. They couldn't hurt us at all."

The spiders add to a number of new and endangered species recently found living in the southwest Johnson County area dubbed by the Land Trust as the Hills of Gold Core Conservation Area.

“While some scientists are exploring outer space, it’s amazing to think that we’re still discovering new things on Earth, like new species of spiders right here in Central Indiana," said Cliff Chapman, executive director of the Central Indiana Land Trust.

The discovery further reinforces the work the Land Trust is doing to conserve natural habitats, he said. "There is still so much to be discovered in the natural areas that surround us, but it will all remain undiscovered if we fail to protect those areas.”

Milne said 80 to 90 percent of Indiana's forests have been cleared, "so we've probably been losing a lot of species we never even knew existed. Now we're looking at these pockets of forest and starting to find things that have probably been there a long time."

The nonprofit conservation organization announced the spider find as it completes the purchase of an additional 97 acres in the Glacier’s End Nature Preserve. The nature preserve, a chunk of Johnson County property the Land Trust protected earlier this year, now covers 300 acres, bringing the number of protected acres in Johnson County to nearly 700.

The Land Trust plans to open Glacier’s End for public access in 2018, after building trails, educational signs and parking areas big enough for school buses.

As befits the conservation agency, Chapman said the property — and the spiders — will be treated tenderly and managed with care.

"You expect to discover new species in the Amazon Rain Forest or Southeast Asia," Chapman said. "This is 35 minutes from Downtown Indianapolis. It's pretty exciting."

In case you were wondering, there are approximately 460 species of spiders recorded in the state. And only a select few like to come indoors where it's warm.

Call IndyStar reporter Maureen Gilmer at (317) 444-6879. Follow her on Twitter: @MaureenCGilmer.

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