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		<title>Mongabay India</title>
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		<description>India&#039;s environmental science and conservation news</description>
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					<title>New-to-science spider highlights importance of open natural ecosystems</title>
					<link>https://india.mongabay.com/2026/07/new-to-science-spider-highlights-importance-of-open-natural-ecosystems/</link>
					<comments>https://india.mongabay.com/2026/07/new-to-science-spider-highlights-importance-of-open-natural-ecosystems/?noamp=mobile#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Jul 2026 11:30:21 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ananya Singh]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Aditi Tandon]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[arthropods]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[desert]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spiders]]></category>
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											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Almost Famous Species]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Maharashtra]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Deccan Plateau, Grasslands, New species, Positive Environmental, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[What began as a routine vegetation monitoring survey in Maharashtra&#8217;s semi-arid grasslands took an unexpected turn when researchers overturned a rock and stumbled upon a silk-lined burrow underneath. They recognised it as the burrow of a trapdoor spider — an ancient group of spiders, many species of which construct doors of silk and soil to [&#8230;]]]>
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							<![CDATA[What began as a routine vegetation monitoring survey in Maharashtra&#8217;s semi-arid grasslands took an unexpected turn when researchers overturned a rock and stumbled upon a silk-lined burrow underneath. They recognised it as the burrow of a trapdoor spider — an ancient group of spiders, many species of which construct doors of silk and soil to conceal their burrow openings and ambush passing prey. The team dug through the soil, following the burrow to its end where a female trapdoor spider of the genus Tigidia lay in a bulb-shaped chamber. A detailed examination of this specimen, collected in November 2025 near Nandeshwar Mahadev Temple in Ahilyanagar, Maharashtra, confirmed it as a new-to-science species. Researchers named it Tigidia singhal in their study published in the journal Arachnology, bringing the number of Tigidia species in India to eight. Until now, species of this genus were known from peninsular India’s tropical evergreen and deciduous forests, particularly the Western and Eastern Ghats. T. singhal is the first record of this genus from a semi-arid open natural ecosystem, significantly expanding its known range. “The species inhabits rocky hilltop grasslands of the Deccan Plateau, an ecosystem often overlooked despite supporting remarkable biodiversity,” wrote study authors Rishikesh Tripathi and Prasad Bolde in an email to Mongabay-India. “Finding a previously unknown trapdoor spider here highlights how little we still know about the biodiversity of these open natural ecosystems,” they added. A female of the newly described trapdoor spider, Tigidia singhal (left) and the silk-lined burrow (right) built by this&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://india.mongabay.com/2026/07/new-to-science-spider-highlights-importance-of-open-natural-ecosystems/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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														</item>
						<item>
					<title>Heaven is where there are Mahua trees – and their bat friends</title>
					<link>https://india.mongabay.com/2018/06/heaven-is-where-there-are-mahua-trees-and-their-bat-friends/</link>
					<comments>https://india.mongabay.com/2018/06/heaven-is-where-there-are-mahua-trees-and-their-bat-friends/?noamp=mobile#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Jun 2018 10:19:02 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Bhanu Sridharan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sandhya Sekar]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
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					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://india.mongabay.com/?p=1463</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Tamil Nadu]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Biomes, Deccan Plateau, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[It was while studying the breeding and courtship behaviour of short nosed fruit bats that biologist Parthasarathy Thiruchenthil Nathan began to examine roosting sites around every house from the ancient temple town of Tirunelveli to the town of Kutralam at the edge of the southern Western Ghats. Even though the aim was to look up [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[It was while studying the breeding and courtship behaviour of short nosed fruit bats that biologist Parthasarathy Thiruchenthil Nathan began to examine roosting sites around every house from the ancient temple town of Tirunelveli to the town of Kutralam at the edge of the southern Western Ghats. Even though the aim was to look up at the bats hanging from palm trees, Nathan, curious to see what they were eating, started to look down at the remains of their meals. “Most of the sites had left over fruits, flowers and seeds of the Mahua tree,” he said. He began reading about the plant. No tree has come to symbolise the dry tropical forests of Peninsular India like Madhuca longifolia, called Mahua in Hindi and Illupai in Tamil. Indigenous communities use the bark of the tree as medicine, the fruit as food and of course the flowers as an intoxicant. “Heaven is where there are Mahua trees and hell is where there is no mahua tree to make wine,” Nathan recalled reading one version of a popular Gond saying. “That’s when I became interested,” he said. From the scant literature that was available in 2004, Nathan learnt that fruit bats were believed to eat up Mahua flowers, ruining the tree’s chances of bearing fruit. Mahua is a treasured plant species across Peninsular India. Photo by Dinesh Valke / Wikimedia Commons. The bats help, too To find out if this was really true, he spent three years observing Mahua trees in the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://india.mongabay.com/2018/06/heaven-is-where-there-are-mahua-trees-and-their-bat-friends/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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