![]() ![]() The result? “The spider is being pushed by habitat changes to peripheral areas such as north-facing rock slopes,” where cooler temperatures keep moss moist, says Catley. Invasive insects are killing trees in the park, changing forest composition and depleting the canopy that provides shade and moisture. “If the moss dries out,” he says, “the spider can’t survive.” Fir trees collect cloud moisture and keep moss mats moist and shaded, says Glenn Taylor, GSMNP’s forester biologist who monitors the park’s spider population. Moss provides the insulation and food resources the spider needs to survive. The spruce-fir moss spider lives only beneath emerald green moss mats that cling to boulders at high elevations, typically above 5,300 feet. ![]() These tiny, endangered tarantulas live only under moss at cool, high elevations in the Southern Appalachians, where invasive insects, a warming climate and other threats are altering habitat to the point that scientists fear the spiders may not survive. “They’ve disappeared.” He’s on a quest to learn if the decline is widespread-and reversible. “In 1987, I could get out of the car at Clingmans Dome and identify rocks where I found the spiders, but they aren’t on the dome anymore,” says Catley. There, spruce-fir forests provide the moisture and shade that nurture bryophytes (nonvascular plants, including mosses) growing on rocks, the elusive spider’s main habitat. At 6,643 feet, it’s the highest peak in the park. In years past, Catley remembers finding the spider high on the moss-covered rock outcroppings that dot Clingmans Dome, a mountain straddling North Carolina and Tennessee. Roughly the size of a BB pellet, this species is the world’s smallest tarantula. A professor at Western Carolina University (WCU), Catley studies the history and evolution of insects, but of particular interest to him is the future of one species of spider found only in a few isolated pockets of the Southern Appalachian Mountains: the endangered spruce-fir moss spider. When biologist Kefyn Catley hikes the damp forests of Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP), he is often on the hunt. Protecting her white egg sac, a spruce-fir moss spider graces a patch of moss in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. ![]() Farewell to the World’s Smallest Tarantula?Īn endangered spider struggles to survive as the forest changes in its Appalachian home ![]()
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