Some amateur cave explorers discovered a new family of spiders in the caves near Grants Pass. Last night I was watching this on the local news and then this morning it was front page of the newspaper.
The spelunkers and others gave this specimen the name because of the fearsome front claws this spider has. The sent a specimen down to California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco which is the largest collection of spiders in the west. Entomologists there say the spider is reddish-brown and the size of a half dollar-evolved so distinctively that it requires its own taxonomic family. This is the first new spider family found since 1870.
“It took us a long time to figure out what it wasn’t” said Charles Griswold, curator of arachnids at the academy. “Even longer to figure out what it is” They used anatomy, and DNA to understand its evolutionary place. They had to then consult other experts all over the world about what it was. They all came to the conclusion that this was a something completely new to science. The discovery is described in the Friday online journal of ZooKeys. Which explains in detail-details I don’t understand the breakdown of this spider.
“Because it belongs to one of the more primitive groups of true spiders, it has the potential to change many of our current ideas about the early evolution of spiders, but it is better than a fossil, because we can study the entire organism along with its behavior and physiology not just those aspects that happen to have been fossilized”
The Oregon spider’s species name – marching-toni honors Deschutes County sheriff’s deputy Neil Marchington, who was on the first Western Cave Conservancy expedition in 2010 to inventory the critters in a cave on private land outside Grants Pass. A year later he led academy scientists to the site to collect live specimens.
“A lot of times, caves are very unique ecosystems, and what we find there can be very special”, said Marchinton from the jail in Bend where he works. “At other times they can be completely normal.”
“They make a little web, but hang under this web. They hang some of their legs out in space. This is all in the dark in a cave. We think the legs are stretched out waiting for something to come by like a fly, and when it hits the legs the claws may just snap shut”, but we haven’t seen this happen yet as the spider is very shy.
This spider does not look shy to me, very intimidating actually….eeek. Good thing I am not a spelunker. But awesome interesting find. To them it is like discovering a dinosaur.
excerpts above article have been taken from The Eugene Register Guard, by Jeff Barnard and Pictures from zookeys journal.
nutsfortreasure said,
August 18, 2012 @ 4:18 pm
so glad I did not zoom in on ours
M said,
August 20, 2012 @ 9:36 am
that may have been scary….eeek
nutsfortreasure said,
August 20, 2012 @ 12:47 pm
niasunset said,
August 22, 2012 @ 4:51 am
WOW! but scary too
Thanks and Love, dear M, nia
reddolls said,
August 31, 2012 @ 2:01 am
wowweee and i thought my spider post was a bit full on!! that’s a helluva spidey there!!
M said,
August 31, 2012 @ 9:55 am
yes thank goodness I didn’t discover it, or it wouldn’t have been a rare discovery they would have been able to research….
Jody and Ken said,
September 1, 2012 @ 1:05 pm
Stopped by your blog because you gave us a LIKE and I wanted to see who you were–and I came across this post. Very cool. I’m one of those guys who still reads about science and economics and math long decades after school was ended. It’s remarkable enough that scientists are still discovering new life forms around volcanic vents on the ocean floor, but it’s WAY neat that some local spelunkers discover a new species of spider right under their noses. Great post. Thanks for including the photos, they’re fabulous. Ken