Spiders (Araneae: Arachnida) of Reserve Forests of Dooars: Gorumara National Park, Chapramari Wildlife Sanctuary and Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary

ABSTRACT
Spiders have established themselves as a model group in biochemical (silk and venom proteins),
behavioural (sexual and web building behaviours) and ecological (foraging, prey-predator interaction
and IPM) research. They are also utilized as ecological indicators in many terrestrial communities.
Appreciating the bioresource value of spiders, present discourse is second in the series on the spiders
of Gorumara National Park, Chapramari WildLife Sanctuary (Dist. Jalpaiguri) and Mahananda
WildLife Sanctuary (Dist. Darjeeling), West Bengal, India. The study area falls within the eastern
Himalaya, one of the global hotspots. It is worthwhile to mention that despite sincere efforts Indian
spiders of the protected areas remained unexplored until the editors initiated studying the group since
1993. The monograph embodies taxonomic account and distribution of the species recorded from
different ranges of these reserve forests

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