Tarantulas Have Now Been Discovered Living at Altitudes That Amaze Scientists
Tarantulas are those big hairy spiders that basically look like your worst nightmare of what a spider can look like. Their large hairy bodies, and long hairy legs that move in ways that just don’t seem right are undeniably creepy. They are certainly not a favorite among the arachnophobe crowd. However, most of us can rest free of worry because tarantulas are only found in warm areas, like the desert landscape of Arizona. The ones we tend to imagine are those huge desert and jungle dwelling ones like the Goliath Bird Eater. However, a recent study revealed 7 new species of tarantula at an elevation that scientists didn’t think tarantulas could actually survive.
Tracie Seimon, a biologist and lead researcher on the study, first discovered these new tarantulas back in 2005 when she was hiking in the Peruvian Andes, flipping over rocks to look for frogs. Instead of finding a frog, Seimon found a little burrow with a small, fuzzy little backside sticking out of it. After extracting and photographing the creature, she found that the little spider was actually a two-inch-long, never before seen species of tarantula. She found the little critter at an elevation of over 14,700 feet. This was and still is unheard of until this finding exposed the high altitude tarantulas. Tarantulas are not normally fond of arid mountain air with lower oxygen levels and subglacial terrain. However, Seimon was going to discover that these little tarantulas were crawling all over the hills and mountains of South America.
These new tiny tarantulas are rather cute when you look at how small and fuzzy they are. They have blonde colored legs and a black body featuring a bright red spot on their back. The red spot was discovered to hold a type of hair that the tarantulas use to flick defensively at predators. Seimon decided to name the new species Hapalotremus vilcanota, in reference to the mountain chain in the Andes where they were found. These tarantulas are very tiny, most no larger than a bottle cap, and live at very high elevations in forests or rocky, mountainous areas.
Do you think scientists will find more new species of spiders and other creatures living in areas of high elevation that we currently think they don’t go near? What kind of biological changes do you think developed to help these spiders adapt to living at higher elevations