Sometimes, even though we never ask for it, creatures are discovered that show us that there are still monsters in the world. To quote Lorne Malvo from the first season of FX’s Fargo, “Because some roads you shouldn’t go down. Because maps used to say, ‘There be dragons here.’ And now they don’t. But that don’t mean the dragons aren’t there.” Well, there probably aren’t any dragons lurking in the shadows (except maybe the Loch Ness Monster?), but, according to The San Diego Natural History Museum, there are more monsters walking among us than we know about.
Back in 2013, entomologist Jim Berrian and a group of researchers were busy exploring caves near La Paz in the Sierra Cacachilas mountains in Mexico when they found something jarring, and they may as well have stumbled upon a group of “face huggers” from the Alien movies. The discovery was that frightening.
What they discovered was a new species of spider as large as a softball. If spiders give you the heebie-jeebies, read no further because it’s only going to get worse.
“The first evidence we found of this species was a shed exoskeleton in the cracks of a rock overhand,” Berrian told the The Nat. If I saw something like that, I would take it as a warning and get the heck out of there.
But, it shouldn’t be a surprise that a giant spider we never knew existed was randomly found in a cave in Mexico. According to the museum, scientists have discovered and named around 1.1 million species of insects and spiders. But, it’s assumed that there are up to five million species yet to be identified. If that’s not frightening, I don’t know what is. If they only just found this beast, what else is out there waiting to jump on our faces in the darkness? We already know that spiders could kill and eat all of us if they wanted to.
Since they didn’t find any living spiders on their first trip to the cave, they decided to come back at night. So, not only were they going into a cave full of creepy crawlies, but they were going to do it when they were most active (no thank you). How else were they going to find the first living specimen of this monstrosity?
Lucky for them, they found some. They decided to name it Califorctenus cacachilensis and called in renowned scientist Dr. Maria Luisa Jimenez to check it out. “In all my experience over the years, collecting spiders on the peninsula, I had never seen a spider this large,” she told the blog. Oh, that’s comforting. A scientist who spends her life studying spiders has never encountered a larger spider?
Researchers discovered that a bite from this spider isn’t lethal. Plus, this giant beast of a spider has (so far) only been found in these caves in Mexico. You don’t have to be afraid that somehow it will get into your house and crawl onto your bed while you’re sleeping. Yeah, don’t worry about that at all. Definitely don’t spend any time thinking about it when the lights go out. It’s fine. You’re fine. You’re fine.
