Rare whip spider continues to reproduce in Trieste’s Kleine Berlin wartime shelter

A female whip spider carrying newly hatched young on her back has been found inside Trieste’s Kleine Berlin, an underground complex built during World War II as an air-raid shelter.

The observation involved two specimens of Charinus ioanniticus, an arachnid from the Amblypygi order, commonly known as whip spiders. A university student received permission to enter one of the galleries closed to regular visitors for study purposes. On the gray, damp walls, the student found the female and another specimen.

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These animals did not simply survive accidentally inside the shelter, but managed to establish themselves permanently in the underground environment and reproduce.

The Trieste Alpine Club said the discovery confirms that the animals did not merely survive by chance inside the shelter. They have established themselves in the underground environment and are reproducing there. The club described the presence of the species, which is considered harmless to humans, as ecologically interesting because it lives in a completely artificial setting.

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An interesting case from an ecological point of view.

Charinus ioanniticus had been known in the eastern Mediterranean, with reports from Turkey, Rhodes, Kos and other areas. Its presence in Athens was documented in 2019, at the time the first known finding of the species in continental Europe. Trieste’s population later became the subject of a study published in 2020 in the scientific journal Arachnology, which also examined how the species may have reached the city.

The club said the female carrying young documents another reproductive phase inside the gallery and shows that the underground habitat continues to provide conditions compatible with the species’ biological cycle.

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The finding documents another reproductive phase inside the gallery and shows that the population continues to find conditions there compatible with its biological cycle.