Arachnology meet concludes at Amravati

Amravati: The 3rd conference of Asian Society of Arachnology concluded with a two-day visit to Melghat forests, where arachnologists from around the world laid their hands on various species of spiders for further studies.
Renewing their pledge to meet next year in USA, the scientists and researchers were delighted to see the society growing in stature and number. “This is by far a largely attended and excellently conducted meet,” said president Dr Hirotsugu Ono before leaving for Japan.
Arachnologists Matjaz Kuntner from Slovania, Yuri Marusik from Russia, Peter Jaegar from Germany, Simon Hodge and Suresh Benjamin (Sri Lanka) were equivocal in their observation that the conference succeeded in giving a new direction to research on spiders, beyond the taxonomical studies.
Peter Jaegar told TOI that India was the least explored country as far as spiders were concerned. “India has rich bio-diversity that offers great potential to researchers on spiders. This can be exploited with international cooperation,” he said.
The foreign delegates showered praise on the organizers. “We are at a loss of words to describe the arrangements and hospitality,” said Ingi Agnarsson.
Dr GN Vankhede said an attempt was made to focus on this year’s ISCA theme of science and technology for indigenous development in India.