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conservation: Hidden Treasures of St Helena - Two New Spider Species Discovered

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11 November 2025 (Updated 2 December 2025)
Special Feature By James Hamilton

Blushing snail, St Helena Island. By Roger S. Key (rspb-images.com)

​High in the mist-shrouded hills above Longwood House — where Napoleon Bonaparte spent his final years gazing across the wild Atlantic — a new chapter in St Helena’s story has just been written. But this one isn’t about emperors or exile. It’s about spiders.

Tiny, armoured spiders that have survived for millennia in the folds of this ancient island.

Two extraordinary new species have recently been discovered: a Goblin Spider with armour-like plates glinting across its abdomen, and a Miniscule Spider, no bigger than a speck of dust and completely eyeless. Their discovery brings the number of species found nowhere else but St Helena to an incredible 507 — a treasure trove of life packed into one of the most remote places on Earth.

For wildlife watchers, St Helena is a dream. Its forests hum with life that exists in no other place, from the delicate Blushing Snail, whose pink-tinted shell gleams like coral in the mist, to the Spiky Woodlouse and the ancient St Helena Olive, a tree thought extinct until it was rediscovered on a remote cliff. Every corner of this island tells a story of survival and adaptation.

But the story is fragile. Centuries ago, much of St Helena’s forest was cleared, and invasive plants like New Zealand Flax, brought over for rope-making, spread quickly through the valleys. Today, just 16 hectares of Cloud Forest remain — the last refuge for many of these unique species, and the source of fresh water for the island’s 4,000 residents.
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British arachnologist Danniella “Danni” Sherwood has spent years unravelling these mysteries. Her research, part of the St Helena Cloud Forest Project funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, has revealed not just these two new spiders but several others in recent years. She discovered the Miniscule Spider in a single, decades-old specimen — proof that even long-forgotten samples can tell new stories when seen with fresh eyes.

In honour of the islanders who dedicate their lives to protecting this rare wildlife, the new species have been named the Christy Jo Goblin Spider (after Christy Jo Scipio-O’Dean) and the Martina Miniscule Spider (after Martina Peters).

“Saint Helena holds a special place in my heart,” Danni Sherwood says. “So many of its species are found nowhere else — and so many are on the edge of extinction. These discoveries remind us what’s still here, and what we still have a chance to protect.”
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Shayla Ellick, the RSPB’s St Helena Cloud Forest Project Manager, agrees: “There’s joy in every discovery,” she says, “but also the reminder that some species may vanish before we even meet them. Our work is about slowing that loss — giving these incredible creatures a future.”

For visitors and wildlife lovers, St Helena is more than a remote island, it’s a living museum of evolution, where even the smallest creatures tell a story millions of years in the making. And somewhere, deep in the mist, perhaps more wonders are still waiting to be found.

Black cabbage tree, St Helena Island. By Amy Webster (rspb-images.com)

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