New Translucent Spider Discovered Living in Muddy Cave Indiana

Scientists have discovered a new species of spider-weaver leaf, and she only lives in a cave in southern Indiana. As its name indicates, this spider weaves flat and tightly woven horizontal canvases. There are thousands of species of weavers, and you have probably crossed one of their paintings by accident.

"In the morning, when there is dew on the grass, and you see the small horizontal canvases," said Marc Milne to Gizmodo.Milne is arachnologist at the University of New York. Indianapolis who identified the new spider in Indiana

This new leaf weaver, baptized Islandiana lewisi is probably not dangerous for humans, it is only 2 millimeters long and probably eats other small arthropods, such as springtails

"Snares look like small lunch bags for spiders. They're sweet and nutrient-filled, "Milne said." When springtails jump in the air, they can land and get stuck in those webs. "Although he did not watch it directly, Milne think that's what happens in the Stygeon River cave where I. lewisi live.

As described in his study published in June 1945 Subterranean Biology Milne named the new spider lewisi in tribute to his colleague Julian Lewis, an independent, isopod taxonomist who first drew his attention to the spiders hiding in the cave of Indiana.

Milne went to see the spiders for himself, and found the cave a little treacherous to navigate. "It's actually a little tight," he told Gizmodo. is small and narrow. You must crawl to enter.

He added that the cave sometimes floods, leaving it very wet and mucky, but the spiders seemed at home, spinning their canvases between giant rocks covered with mud.While the spiders had lost some of their pigment and were slightly translucent (a common trait among cavernicolous creatures deprived of light), he noticed that their eyes had not shrunk.This led him to believe that spiders did not shrink. had not occupied the cave as long as many other animals we know – maybe a few million years rather than hundreds of millions of years ago.

I think that 's the only thing I've ever seen. It may seem strange that a new species of spider has been detected in Indiana, Milne says that it is a misconception that all new spiders will be found in sparsely populated areas. [19659005] "When people think to new spiders discovered, they think of the Amazon or the ice under Antarctica, "he said. "But even in our garden, there are a lot of new unknown organisms that we do not know much about – people think we know everything about the Midwestern and US organizations because we've traveled the earth, but in fact, this is not the case.Many groups are really little studied.Spiders are only one of them. "

[Subterranean Biology]