Arachnids
This creature was discovered in '96 while I was looking at
some of the "fuzz" sticking out of the large crevice in the meteorite.
When I first found it, I just assumed it was some Earth spider that had crawled
into the meteorite during it's time on Earth. As you can see from the
picture, this creature is covered by the tiny glass filaments that are in almost
every nook and cranny of the meteorite. For this reason, I kept the
spider, but I never looked at it for about the first year. However, after
getting my
microscope, I began looking at everything that came from the meteorite and in
time I did begin to look closely at this insect.
One of the things that struck me as unusual, is the fact that this creature seemed to have a very exotic face. First there seemed to be no special facial features which are very common on terrestrial spiders. And second, it seemed to have a face that pivots separate from the body.
All terrestrial arachnids have three body segments.
(The Anatomy
of a Spider) They have a head, a thorax, and an abdomen. But the head
and thorax are fused, so that if the spider wants to look left, he has to turn
his body to the left. He can't just turn his head. Yet the
picture above
and
to the right seems to show the creature with his head turned to his right (your
left). In the electron microscope photograph,
this creature clearly is turning his head and notice the absence of specialized
facial features. Click on this picture to see an enlargement.
Earthly spiders are apparently identified by their claws.
The few scientists that
have looked at this picture have told me that this spider is related to a family
of terrestrial cave spiders. To the best of my
knowledge, this meteorite has never been in a cave. For this spider to be
identified as terrestrial, I would think genius and species would be required.
This spider is still in my protection,
although
"he" has been mounted and coated with gold for his photography
section with the electron microscope. This spider is
available for testing.
This spider seems to have had an abdomen, but it is now gone. The picture to the right is positioned with the abdomen towards the top of the picture and is the darker part of the picture. It seems to show broken edges where the abdomen used to be.
Enjoy the pictures below of this interesting creature.
