Trap door spider "great ocean journey" gets worldwide press coverage

A paper published in听 today by PhD candidate and today tells the origin story of Trapdoor Spider's arrival in Australia.

This new paper challenges the previous theory the spiders arrived in Australia during the break up of the supercontinent Gondwana 95 million years ago.
However, the genetic analysis conducted by PhD candidate Sophie Harrison suggests the species of trapdoor spiders found on South Australia's Kangaroo Island only split from it's closest relative 2-16 million years ago.

This new evidence proposes trapdoor spiders may have rafted across the Indian ocean in their silk sealed, climate controlled homes on or in debris washed out of African rivers to Australia.

Read the full media release

And see the story covered in more detail in听, featured in the top five stories on 听, , 听,听SA's publication 听补苍诲 which has a daily readership of 7 million.
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