Canberra's spider man, Stuart Harris, has found himself in the middle of yet another new spider species discovery, this time on the Far South Coast.
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Mr Harris led a group on a BioBlitz expedition in the Murrah Flora Reserve late last year to teach a group who were interested in finding spiders. Citizen scientist, Helen Ransom was looking through a leaf litter when she spotted a spider.
“She said to me 'oh Stuart, what's this?' and I looked at it and was like 'oh no, that's a new species', I just knew straight away,” Mr Harris said. “We were all over the moon jumping around, you can imagine how they felt.
"They just went out for a day in the bush to maybe find some pretty spiders and then they found a new species."
The spider was named Maratus sapphirus on Wednesday. Mr Harris said the name came from his suggestion of sapphire.
“Because it was found on the Sapphire coast… I suggested the name be something to do with sapphire, also because of its colour,” he said.