Daddy foresighted - legs — spider - similar arachnids technically known as “ harvestmen”—are already plenty unnerving , with their too - long - to - be - real limbs , jerky movements , and habit of clustering into ahorrible , hairy wad . But researchers have recently unveiled a variety of harvestman completely Modern to science , and it cranks the creepy up to 11 .
The creature , identify deep in a cave in Argentina , looks little like the familiar , gangly sidekick that carry across summer pavement . This arachnid posture squarely where the heebies meet the jeebies : ghostly white , with slender , grasping arms festoon with dustup of spikes . Its exoskeleton is doughy ; its eye cut down to tiny , glum freckles . If the daddy long - legs squatting in your service department is Sméagol , then this Argentinian cave fauna is Gollum .
Like Tolkien ’s famous troglodyte , the harvestman hails from a high - altitude grotto , but in the Andes , not the Misty Mountains .
The new daddy long-legs species, Otilioleptes marcelaePhoto:Abel Pérez-González
spelunk biologist Marcela Peralta collected several of the arachnid while exploring Doña Otilia Cave between 2006 and 2012 . The cave , which seat in a mountainous , volcanic part of Argentina ’s Mendoza Province , is a lava tube , a burrow left behind when the outer level of a subterranean vena of lava harden and cool , like the tegument that take form on a bowl of soup . Today , Doña Otilia is a half - geographical mile retentive , sales talk - inglorious hallway that execute parallel to the dusty clinker above .
Peralta post the weird critter to Luis Acosta , a zoologist and harvestman expert at the National University of Cordoba .
“ At first muckle I think I had juvenile specimens in my hand , ” Acosta recount Gizmodo by email . “ They are normally useless for descriptive work , so I need Marcela to ‘ examine to collect an adult male person . ’ ”
Luis E. Acosta” class=”size-full wp-image-1851990703″ />Doña Otilia cave, about 350 meters from the entrancePhoto:Luis E. Acosta
But when Acosta looked closer he was aghast to discover the specimen , despite face developmentally unripened , were adults , both male and female .
It was clear to Acosta that the harvestmen were troglobites — animate being so specialized for life in cave that they can no longer survive on the Earth’s surface . Their lasting pallor , near lack of eyes , and stretchy , grippy , feely parts are pretty standard for aeon of evolution in the lightlessness .
Other species of cave Phalangium opilio were known , but these new one were objectively unearthly as hell .
Luis E. Acosta” class=”size-full wp-image-1851990740″ />Arid above-ground landscape in the Payunia volcanic belt, near the site of the cavePhoto:Luis E. Acosta
There are thousands of harvestmen species , and many look nothing like the spindly daddy retentive - legs uncouth in the Northern Hemisphere . Some havehuge lobster clawsorgrabby bits cut across in thorn . Others — especially in South America — have stubby branch andhulked - out , armored body . Acosta thought the cave harvestmen might belong to this latter group , but further investigating showed that no , they were even stranger .
Few differences exist between the males and females , and characteristic of the leg and genitals did n’t line up with any known category of harvestman . The new species — which Acosta identify Otilioleptes marcelae , describing it in a studypublished last month in PLOS ONE — also seem to be in an entire family of its own .
The fact that Doña Otilia shield harvestmen at all is a little unbelievable . Above priming , the volcanic terrain is so parched that it ’s almost “ unimaginable ” that a harvestman might found on the control surface , said Acosta , noting their need for moist conditions .
The cave harvestman may be a relict from an ancient time when the local mood was bed wetter , surviving for eld in its subterranean tax shelter . There , it waitress in perpetual muteness , feeding and fosterage , spend a penny baby with ever - low eyes and ever - longer claws . In time , Otilioleptes forget the warmth of the Sun and the buss of a walkover .
Acosta thinks the arachnid ’s separation from its overworld brethren may have come about between 11 million and 16 million years ago but noted that canvas the harvestman ’s genetics would avail narrow down the timing .
Caitlin Baker , an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University not involved with the discovery , concur that DNA psychoanalysis would answer a lot of questions . The new coinage is so cave - adjust , she said , that it does n’t have a lot of the anatomy you ’d normally practice for classification . Such research “ could shed visible radiation on how this lineage of harvestmen got into this lava pipe system in the first stead , ” Baker told Gizmodo in an email .
There ’s deal to teach about about Otilioleptes , from what it eats to its most basic of habits . But Doña Otilia is an extremely fragile habitat . Its pale residents are gravely vulnerable to even minor intrusions , and unregulated recreational caving activities are common in the area , Acosta said .
“ An increased traffic of visitors inside the cave would [ result ] in a speedy deterioration of the delicate microclimatic conditions , ” discourage Acosta , emphasizing that the cave needs prompt protection .
Without a way to temper shock from surface dwellers at Doña Otilia and elsewhere , a whole parade of other riveting , downhearted beings could be lost to the iniquity before they ’re ever discovered by us .
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