Saucer-sized spider discovered in Baja cave
Saucer-sized spider discovered in Baja cave
In the hills of Baja, Michael Wall and Jim Berrian found a creature thats the stuff of nightmare for most people a cave spider nearly the size of a tarantula.
For the two San Diego Natural History Museum researchers, it was an exciting windfall an unknown arachnid as wide across as a softball.
This is the type of spider that a lot of people would shriek and run from its big enough to fall in that category, said Wall, curator of entomology for the museum.
The brand new species has the stuff of horror films: eight beady eyes, thick fang-like structures, a hairy, inch-long body and legs stretching four inches wide. Berrian, however, describes it in more flattering terms.
I think its a really pretty spider, he said. The head and legs are kind of a chocolate brown. The abdomen is a dull yellow. And its kind of plain, but very striking.
After confirming the spider as a new species, they named it Califorctenus cacachilensis after the Sierra Cacachilas mountain range where they found it, and published the discovery in the journal Zootaxa last month.
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/science/sd-me-cave-spider-20170403-story.html
Video at link.