A group of conservationists from Jersey spotted the spider on a rocky stretch of coast on the island of Îlot Vacoas in 2023. It has now been confirmed as a new species of spider that builds trapdoors over its burrows. It has been given the scientific name Idioctis marevallum.
Entomologist Max Tercel, who found the spider, says it felt like discovering hidden treasure.
“It was not a place where we would have expected to find something so remarkable,” he says.
Unlike other trapdoor spiders, which dig their own burrows, this species lives in cavities in coral bedrock - tubes thought to have been created by worms and mollusks thousands of years ago. The spider seals the entrance with a trapdoor made of silk, sand and algae.
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