Alpine spiders
Jul. 1,1999. M.Sekine
Above is the picture of a male alpine spider, Pardosa paramushirensis, in Mt.Tateyama which rises 3,000 meters above sea level on Honshu in Japan. Why dose this species inhabit such high mountain areas? They not only live in the alpine zones, but also in the subfrigid zones. Perhaps this species flutters from the subfrigid zones by ballooning, or perhaps they had been widely dispersed throughout Japan in The Ice Age, and survived in the alpine zones. I am enchanted with the latter hypothesis, that is to say a 'relic of ice age', like myself.