Today in class we read an article. The article was kind of hard. It was hard to understand, because it had many big words that I have never seen. I didn’t know what some words meant. But some I used context clues; I read what was around the word to figure out what it meant. Now I know what the hard words in the article mean.
The article was about scientists that discovered new cave spider species with claws. Each leg of this spider ends in a curve. The name of the spider is Trogloraptor. The spiders name is Latin for “cave robber." Citizen scientists and archeologists have uncovered these spiders in the caves of southwestern Oregon and old-growth redwood forests. The article says that the cave dweller has a unique lineage. The closest know relatives to the Trogloraptor come from the Oonipidae, or goblin family of spiders.
The researchers believe that the Trogloraptor family separated into its own evolutionary branch some 130 million years ago. Trogloraptor’s claws are barbed on their underside and may be designed to clamp shut on passing prey. A researcher at the California Academy of Sciences says that the spiders are not likely to be venomous to humans. In fact, they’re quite shy. Working with specimens, he observed that their behavior is distinctly unaggressive and their main interest is escaping the light as soon as possible.
The researcher says that these species are different from those found in the caves. He says that given the age of this family and the formal distribution of redwoods in North America, it’s possible that other Trogloraptor species could inhabit caves across the country.
I found my information at: http://www.scientificamerican.com/gallery_directory.cfm?photo_id=1AC9C7D1-F12B-0179-DF7FE9529D8EF93D
Remember to only summarize for half of your post and give your own response to the article in the other half.
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