Sad passing of expert on Seychelles’ spiders |12 May 2008
His involvement with Seychelles began in 1974 when he visited Mahe for a few days. While here he described several new spider species from the area around the Reef Hotel, where he was staying, including some he found inside his hotel room. At this time 74 species of spider had been recorded in Seychelles.
In 1994 Michael was asked to identify some spiders collected by the Nature Protection Trust of Seychelles (NPTS), and this started a highly productive collaboration. Over the next decade an enormous amount of material was examined, mostly from collections he made in 1999 as well as from the trust’s Indian Ocean biodiversity assessment. This brought the total number of spider species here to over 200.
His favourites were the dwarf hunting spiders of the family Oonopidae. Seychelles has an unusually large number of these species, most of which are less than 1mm long.
Collecting minute spiders was very rewarding for him because of his enthusiasm and the challenge of finding a spider small enough to impress him. He finally admitted to being surprised at the smallness of a spider 0.4mm long.
Michael’s work on the Seychelles Oonopidae established him as the world expert on this group, and from 2000 he was in great demand around the world to work on different spider faunas. His major publications include works on Yemen, and especially China, as well as Seychelles.
Just before a planned visit to Seychelles in 1997, Michael was taken ill with a large kidney tumour. This was operated on and had little effect on his collecting ability in 1999. Unfortunately the surgery was not completely successful and further tumours were found in his bones, and finally in his liver in 2006.
Despite the hardships and pain this must have caused, he retained his enthusiasm for his work, although a succession of broken bones forced him to abandon sailing, his motorbike and eventually his beloved sport of ice fishing (fishing through a hole drilled through the thick ice of the frozen Finnish sea). Even with broken bones he managed to continue working on his spiders until early last year.
Michael Saaristo will be greatly missed by his friends in Seychelles and the global spider community. The NPTS is arranging the completion of his book on Seychelles’ spiders, which will be published later this year as a tribute to a great scientist and good friend.
Contributed by the Nature Protection Trust of Seychelles