Lycosa alatus

I went to Milan for work today and used the opportunity to visit a site that I have been curious about for a while. Just before the start of the pandemic, entymologists from the University of Milan were doing field research with students by an abandoned chemical plant in the suburbs of the metropolitan city when they came across a spider with 10 legs. A few months later they had discovered in total 18 new spider species on the site that are thought to be mutants caused by heavy pollution of the area. Spiders are known to have a high mutation rate in nature, but this was far beyond what anyone would have expected. A few articles have already been published about their discoveries, but the research is still ongoing. Today I had the opportunity to visit the site that has been closed off for public and photograph some of the species. This particular one has been given the name Lycosa Alatus, and is one of only two winged spiderspecies known in the world.  More photos in a collage in extra