Latrodectus katipo

[darkness975]

Does anyone know what, if any, measures are being taken to save Latrodectus katipo from extinction?

Katipō - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[The Snark]

I'll give a friend of mine a shout. He lives in an urban environment but cares for quite a few acres of wilderness area and is environment oriented so he may have some handle on the situation. Boots on the ground info is often quite useful.

 

[darkness975]

I'll give a friend of mine a shout. He lives in an urban environment but cares for quite a few acres of wilderness area and is environment oriented so he may have some handle on the situation. Boots on the ground info is often quite useful.

I assume he lives in New Zealand?

 

[The Snark]

Up in the foothills NW of Christchurch so he is in both high and very low human population densities.

 

[Smotzer]

Hopefully something because it looks like a stunning species!

 

[The Snark]

@darkness975 Not much but something.
Backgrounder on my friend: He is a maintenance and machinery restoration mechanic. He works near the major city in commercial and industrial areas. His ranch is adjacent to wilderness area. He spends an extensive amount of time in the farmlands and wilderness, going through old barns and sheds and even out in the forests, recovering and restoring equipment. He has never encountered a Katipo. So cross off the common haunts of Latro in the US.
From what he has heard, they are usually found near the beaches.
As a footnote, if New Zealand has something equivalent to the California Coastal Commission which severely restricts the usage of land from mean high water tides to one mile inland, preservation efforts, then the Katipo have a good chance of survival.

 

[darkness975]

From what he has heard, they are usually found near the beaches.

Correct. They have a very specific habitat. They prefer one side of the sand dunes along the coastal regions. Competition from invasive Steatoda spp. And habitat loss are their biggest threats.

Similar to the threat of L. geometricus to our north American native species.