A Denver museum scientist has discovered two new species of arachnids in Colorado caves — creatures separated from their out-of-cave cousins for 8 million years and evolving entirely in the dark.
Shiny orange with yellow stripes, their pea-sized bodies connect spiked legs up to an inch long. These arachnids are the latest of more than 100 that biologist Dave Steinmann has captured over 20 years while exploring caves and using special magnification glasses. Two years ago, Steinmann found a new millipede in a mountain cave near Eagle.
“It takes looking really closely, turning over the right rock,” said Steinmann, 48, a volunteer associate at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science who also works as a consultant for wetlands restoration.
Venturing into caves, “I sometimes feel anxious to get back out. But sometimes I feel at peace, enjoying it and that nobody on earth is going to bother me,” Steinmann said.
An independent team of scientists verified his discovery, through DNA sequence analysis, and published on these latest daddy longlegs arachnids. One was found a quarter mile into the Cave of the Winds west of Colorado Springs and the other 1,000 feet into a cave near Boulder. Steinmann put them in jars and sent them to San Diego for the testing.
Scientists see potential benefits in learning how arachnids evolving deep inside caves can survive on very little food. Some can live for up to two years without food.
These arachnids — speoventus and sclerobunus steinmanni — add to the Denver museum’s mostly behind-the-scenes collection of 35,000 vials containing arachnids (spiders, daddy longlegs, scorpions, camel spiders). Specimens collected in another 20,000 vials have yet to be identified.
Colorado has more than 1,000 caves, including the 12-mile-deep Groaning Cave in Glenwood Canyon.
Among the creatures studied in a Denver museum lab is a camel spider named Hemerotrecha kaboomi, found at a Nevada test site for nuclear bombs.
“This matters because we know of one planet in one solar system that houses life, and we know only a fraction of the species,” said Paula Cushing, the museum’s curator of invertebrate zoology. “Who else lives in our house? It’s important to understand the biodiversity that exists on this planet.”
Bruce Finley: 303-954-1700, bfinley@denverpost.com or twitter.com/finleybruce
