The complete classification of the Braken Bat Cave meshweaver is as follows:
Domain: Eukarya
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Arachnida
Order: Araneae
Genus: Circurina
Species: Circurina madla
The Braken Bat Cave meshweaver is small, essentially eyeless and reproduces rapidly. Being small, the spider is able to escape being eaten by the other cave animals. Although being essentially eyeless is not an advantage, it has happened because the spider lives in a dark cave for its entire lifespan and couldn’t see anything even if it could see. It reproduces rapidly because it is food for all the other animals in the cave. There must be a constant food supply for all the animals and there must be some that survive to perpetuate the species.
We could make money in the extermination business if we could isolate and selectively breed for this species ability to reproduce quickly. We could then plant some of these spiders in dark places in people’s houses and they would eliminate a lot of the bug population in them. This would be a chemical-free way to effectively control pests.
In order to do this, we must first obtain permission to access the cave that is the lone known place where these spiders may or may not be. If some are still there, we should take all that we can find and bring them into a cave like simulated place in the laboratory. We can separate them into “couples” and mate them. The ones whose babies hatch first we will keep along with the offspring. The rest we will put back into the cave. We will then “couple” the offspring and again keep the fastest reproducing pair and their offspring. We will repeat this process until there is no longer a change in reproduction times. Since nothing is known about the reproduction process of this spider, we will just have to simulate the cave like atmosphere it is used to as much as possible and observe what causes the spiders to mate and how they do it. We will have to keep these findings in mind when separating them into “couples”.
I think we can make a lot of money with this plan, but I don’t think it is ethical or even possible to do so. The bat cave is on private property and is covered up. The owner has not allowed people in to do government research and so I think it is highly unlikely he/she will let us in. We could offer to buy the property from them or pay them to be able to access the spiders. I’m not sure that it is a good idea to remove these spiders from their habitat in order to do this project. We will miss many, and there are probably still more in the cave, but if we do happen to take all of them and we kill them in our lab, we will have eradicated the species. Also, since we really don’t know if this spider is harmful to humans or pets, we don’t know if we should be introducing them to people’s houses or not.
I think that we should forget this idea and just keep the spiders where they are.
Sources
Department of the Interior: Fish and Wildlife Service. Feceral Register/Vol. 63, No. 250/Wednesday, December 30, 1998. Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Proposal to List Nine Bexar County, Texas Invertebrate Species as Endangered. Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/SpeciesReport.do?spcode=J01D.
Gander Academy. Caves Theme Page. Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/CITE/cave.htm.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Species Profile: Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver (Circurina venii). Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/SpeciesReport.do?spcode=J01D.
Zipcode Zoo. Cicurina venii (Veni’s Cave Spider). Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://zipcodezoo.com/Animals/C/Cicurina_venii.asp.
For the Society for the Conservation of Braken Bat Cave Meshweavers
DNA analysis of these spiders could help us determine how closely related they are to other cave spiders. It may turn out that they are just variations within one of the cave spider species and not as endangered as we think. I think the best approach to find this out would be to obtain DNA samples from a Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver and compare it with DNA samples from another similar cave spider and compare them.
My plan for doing this is not very complex. We first would have to obtain permission from the landowner upon whose land the cave that the Braken Bat Cave Meshweavers is. I am assuming that this may be a major stumbling block as the cave is filled in and no one has seen the spiders since 1983. I think that we should tell the landowner that if the results of our study prove that the spider is the same species as another cave spider, then the environmentalists will not be bothering him/her about the cave any longer. This may make him/her more willing to have us do this study on his/her land.
After obtaining permission, we must dig up the cave since it is filled in right now. After that, we must go inside and hopefully find some Braken Bat Cave Meshweavers still alive. If we do, we can use a very small needle to extract some body fluid and obtain a DNA sample from some. If we don’t find any alive, perhaps we can find some dead ones from which we can obtain a DNA sample.
We will go to another cave and obtain DNA samples from other cave spiders. We will compare the samples and see if they are very closely related. If so, we will go back to the Braken Bat Cave and get a male and female Meshweaver. We will also get male and female cave spiders from the species that we found similar to the Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver. We will put a female Meshweaver and a male of the other species in one jar and a male Meshweaver and a female of the other species in another jar. We will see if they will mate. If they do mate and the eggs hatch then we will know that they are variations of the same species since they can reproduce together.
For the Society for the Genetic Modification of the Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver
I suggest that the Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver be genetically modified so that it is able to be exposed to the sun outside of caves. I think this would help the species in that it is confined to one cave right now because it cannot go out into the world and reproduce and spread to other places. I think that we would need to get a gene from a common garden spider in order to do this. We would need to isolate the gene that makes its exoskeleton and inject it into a non-disease causing virus and inject some Braken Bat Cave Meshweavers with this gene. There are some possible environmental impacts that may occur as a result of releasing individuals with this modification. Because there are so few Braken Bat Cave Meshweavers, we don’t know if it has any natural predators. If there are no predators, the population of these spiders can grow to an alarming rate. We also don’t know what the effect of an overpopulation of these will do to other spider species in terms of reducing their food supply.
Blog link: http://brakenbatcavespider.blogspot.com/
Sources
Department of the Interior: Fish and Wildlife Service. Feceral Register/Vol. 63, No. 250/Wednesday, December 30, 1998. Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Proposal to List Nine Bexar County, Texas Invertebrate Species as Endangered. Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/SpeciesReport.do?spcode=J01D.
Gander Academy. Caves Theme Page. Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/CITE/cave.htm.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Species Profile: Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver (Circurina venii). Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/SpeciesReport.do?spcode=J01D.
Zipcode Zoo. Cicurina venii (Veni’s Cave Spider). Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://zipcodezoo.com/Animals/C/Cicurina_venii.asp.
Week 6 Entry
Today we are going to learn about Cicurina venii. The common name of this spider is the Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver (USFWS). This arachnid is a Eukaryote in the Kingdom Animalia (Zipcode Zoo). It is an arachnid which is an invertebrate. It is an endangered species (USFWS).
The Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver lives only in one cave. This cave is on private property in Bexar County in Texas (Zipcode Zoo). Specimens of the spider were collected in 1980 and in 1983. The cave was not described until 1988. This cave was filled in during construction on the property in 1990 and the effect on the spider’s population is unknown (Dept. of Interior). This cave is called a karst cave. A karst cave is one that is made from water dissolving limestone bedrock. These caves have unusual or rare plant and animal species both on top of them and inside of them (Gander Academy). There may still be food getting into the cave from a small side passage (Dept. of Interior). The spider gets its food from insects that feed off of the decaying matter found in the cave. There were lots of bats in the cave and they may still be there via the side entrance. Their guana on the floor of the cave mixed with leaves and debris that are washed into it and the moisture that seeps in from the ground attract many insects. These are what the Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver eats. The spider may actually benefit from trash and litter being swept into its cave as this would attract more insects. Officials don’t believe that a huge amount of trash would be beneficial to it because of the likelihood of poisoning (Dept. of Interior).
This arachnid may have some venom that it uses on the insects it catches in its web that may be of interest to a bioprospector. Global warming could affect this spider by causing a loss of groundwater which could stop the moisture seeping into the cave. Also if global warming caused a decrease in the bat population of Bexar County that could affect the amount of debris on the floor of the cave to attract insects. It could also affect the insect population which might actually be a bonus to the Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver if there were more. However, an increase in the fire ant population would be detrimental to the cave’s inhabitants (Dept. of Interior). No pictures were available of this extremely rare spider.
Sources
Department of the Interior: Fish and Wildlife Service. Federal Register/Vol. 63, No. 250/Wednesday, December 30, 1998. Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Proposal to List Nine Bexar County, Texas Invertebrate Species as Endangered. Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/SpeciesReport.do?spcode=J01D.
Gander Academy. Caves Theme Page. Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/CITE/cave.htm.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Species Profile: Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver (Circurina venii). Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/SpeciesReport.do?spcode=J01D.
Zipcode Zoo. Cicurina venii (Veni’s Cave Spider). Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://zipcodezoo.com/Animals/C/Cicurina_venii.asp.
Monday, April 9, 2007
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver & Genetic Engineering
For the Society for the Conservation of Braken Bat Cave Meshweavers
DNA analysis of these spiders could help us determine how closely related they are to other cave spiders. It may turn out that they are just variations within one of the cave spider species and not as endangered as we think. I think the best approach to find this out would be to obtain DNA samples from a Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver and compare it with DNA samples from another similar cave spider and compare them.
My plan for doing this is not very complex. We first would have to obtain permission from the landowner upon whose land the cave that the Braken Bat Cave Meshweavers is. I am assuming that this may be a major stumbling block as the cave is filled in and no one has seen the spiders since 1983. I think that we should tell the landowner that if the results of our study prove that the spider is the same species as another cave spider, then the environmentalists will not be bothering him about the cave any longer. This may make him/her more willing to have us do this study on his/her land.
After obtaining permission, we must dig up the cave since it is filled in right now. After that, we must go inside and hopefully find some Braken Bat Cave Meshweavers still alive. If we do, we can use a very small needle to extract some body fluid and obtain a DNA sample from some. If we don’t find any alive, perhaps we can find some dead ones from which we can obtain a DNA sample.
We will go to another cave and obtain DNA samples from other cave spiders. We will compare the samples and see if they are very closely related. If so, we will go back to the Braken Bat Cave and get a male and female Meshweaver. We will also get male and female cave spiders from the species that we found similar to the Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver. We will put a female Meshweaver and a male of the other species in one jar and a male Meshweaver and a female of the other species in another jar. We will see if they will mate. If they do mate and the eggs hatch then we will know that they are variations of the same species since they can reproduce together.
For the Society for the Genetic Modification of the Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver
I suggest that the Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver be genetically modified so that it is able to be exposed to the sun outside of caves. I think this would help the species in that it is confined to one cave right now because it cannot go out into the world and reproduce and spread to other places. I think that we would need to get a gene from a common garden spider in order to do this. We would need to isolate the gene that makes its exoskeleton and inject it into a non-disease causing virus and inject some Braken Bat Cave Meshweavers with this gene. There are some possible environmental impacts that may occur as a result of releasing individuals with this modification. Because there are so few Braken Bat Cave Meshweavers, we don’t know if it has any natural predators. If there are no predators, the population of these spiders can grow to an alarming rate. We also don’t know what the effect of an overpopulation of these will do to other spider species in terms of reducing their food supply.
Sources
Department of the Interior: Fish and Wildlife Service. Feceral Register/Vol. 63, No. 250/Wednesday, December 30, 1998. Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Proposal to List Nine Bexar County, Texas Invertebrate Species as Endangered. Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/SpeciesReport.do?spcode=J01D.
Gander Academy. Caves Theme Page. Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/CITE/cave.htm.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Species Profile: Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver (Circurina venii). Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/SpeciesReport.do?spcode=J01D.
Zipcode Zoo. Cicurina venii (Veni’s Cave Spider). Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://zipcodezoo.com/Animals/C/Cicurina_venii.asp.
DNA analysis of these spiders could help us determine how closely related they are to other cave spiders. It may turn out that they are just variations within one of the cave spider species and not as endangered as we think. I think the best approach to find this out would be to obtain DNA samples from a Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver and compare it with DNA samples from another similar cave spider and compare them.
My plan for doing this is not very complex. We first would have to obtain permission from the landowner upon whose land the cave that the Braken Bat Cave Meshweavers is. I am assuming that this may be a major stumbling block as the cave is filled in and no one has seen the spiders since 1983. I think that we should tell the landowner that if the results of our study prove that the spider is the same species as another cave spider, then the environmentalists will not be bothering him about the cave any longer. This may make him/her more willing to have us do this study on his/her land.
After obtaining permission, we must dig up the cave since it is filled in right now. After that, we must go inside and hopefully find some Braken Bat Cave Meshweavers still alive. If we do, we can use a very small needle to extract some body fluid and obtain a DNA sample from some. If we don’t find any alive, perhaps we can find some dead ones from which we can obtain a DNA sample.
We will go to another cave and obtain DNA samples from other cave spiders. We will compare the samples and see if they are very closely related. If so, we will go back to the Braken Bat Cave and get a male and female Meshweaver. We will also get male and female cave spiders from the species that we found similar to the Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver. We will put a female Meshweaver and a male of the other species in one jar and a male Meshweaver and a female of the other species in another jar. We will see if they will mate. If they do mate and the eggs hatch then we will know that they are variations of the same species since they can reproduce together.
For the Society for the Genetic Modification of the Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver
I suggest that the Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver be genetically modified so that it is able to be exposed to the sun outside of caves. I think this would help the species in that it is confined to one cave right now because it cannot go out into the world and reproduce and spread to other places. I think that we would need to get a gene from a common garden spider in order to do this. We would need to isolate the gene that makes its exoskeleton and inject it into a non-disease causing virus and inject some Braken Bat Cave Meshweavers with this gene. There are some possible environmental impacts that may occur as a result of releasing individuals with this modification. Because there are so few Braken Bat Cave Meshweavers, we don’t know if it has any natural predators. If there are no predators, the population of these spiders can grow to an alarming rate. We also don’t know what the effect of an overpopulation of these will do to other spider species in terms of reducing their food supply.
Sources
Department of the Interior: Fish and Wildlife Service. Feceral Register/Vol. 63, No. 250/Wednesday, December 30, 1998. Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Proposal to List Nine Bexar County, Texas Invertebrate Species as Endangered. Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/SpeciesReport.do?spcode=J01D.
Gander Academy. Caves Theme Page. Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/CITE/cave.htm.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Species Profile: Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver (Circurina venii). Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/SpeciesReport.do?spcode=J01D.
Zipcode Zoo. Cicurina venii (Veni’s Cave Spider). Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://zipcodezoo.com/Animals/C/Cicurina_venii.asp.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver
This blog is about the Cicurina venii. The common name of this spider is the Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver (USFWS). This arachnid is a Eukaryote in the Kingdom Animalia (Zipcode Zoo). It is an arachnid which is an invertebrate. It is an endangered species (USFWS).
The Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver lives only in one cave in the entire world. This cave is on private property in Bexar County in Texas (Zipcode Zoo). Specimens of the spider were collected in 1980 and in 1983. The cave was not described until 1988. It was filled in during construction on the property in 1990 and the effect on the spider’s population is unknown (Dept. of Interior). This cave is called a karst cave. A karst cave is one that is made from water dissolving limestone bedrock. These caves have unusual or rare plant and animal species both on top of them and inside of them (Gander Academy). There may still be food getting into the cave from a small side passage (Dept. of Interior). The spider gets its food from insects that feed off of the decaying matter found in the cave. There were lots of bats in the cave and they may still be there via the side entrance. Their guana on the floor of the cave mixes with leaves and debris that are washed into it and the moisture that seeps in from the ground attract many insects. These are what the Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver traps and eats. The spider may actually benefit from trash and litter being swept into its cave as this would attract more insects. Officials don’t believe that a huge amount of trash would be beneficial to it because of the likelihood of poisoning (Dept. of Interior).
This arachnid may have some venom that it uses on the insects it catches in its web that may be of interest to a bioprospector. Global warming could affect this spider by causing a loss of groundwater which could stop the moisture seeping into the cave. Also if global warming caused a decrease in the bat population of Bexar County that could affect the amount of debris on the floor of the cave to attract insects. It could also affect the insect population which might actually be a bonus to the Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver if there were more. However, an increase in the fire ant population would be detrimental to the cave’s inhabitants as these tend to eat other insects and animals (Dept. of Interior). No pictures were available of this extremely rare spider.
Sources
Department of the Interior: Fish and Wildlife Service. Feceral Register/Vol. 63, No. 250/Wednesday, December 30, 1998. Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Proposal to List Nine Bexar County, Texas Invertebrate Species as Endangered. Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/SpeciesReport.do?spcode=J01D.
Gander Academy. Caves Theme Page. Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/CITE/cave.htm.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Species Profile: Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver (Circurina venii). Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/SpeciesReport.do?spcode=J01D.
Zipcode Zoo. Cicurina venii (Veni’s Cave Spider). Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://zipcodezoo.com/Animals/C/Cicurina_venii.asp.
The Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver lives only in one cave in the entire world. This cave is on private property in Bexar County in Texas (Zipcode Zoo). Specimens of the spider were collected in 1980 and in 1983. The cave was not described until 1988. It was filled in during construction on the property in 1990 and the effect on the spider’s population is unknown (Dept. of Interior). This cave is called a karst cave. A karst cave is one that is made from water dissolving limestone bedrock. These caves have unusual or rare plant and animal species both on top of them and inside of them (Gander Academy). There may still be food getting into the cave from a small side passage (Dept. of Interior). The spider gets its food from insects that feed off of the decaying matter found in the cave. There were lots of bats in the cave and they may still be there via the side entrance. Their guana on the floor of the cave mixes with leaves and debris that are washed into it and the moisture that seeps in from the ground attract many insects. These are what the Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver traps and eats. The spider may actually benefit from trash and litter being swept into its cave as this would attract more insects. Officials don’t believe that a huge amount of trash would be beneficial to it because of the likelihood of poisoning (Dept. of Interior).
This arachnid may have some venom that it uses on the insects it catches in its web that may be of interest to a bioprospector. Global warming could affect this spider by causing a loss of groundwater which could stop the moisture seeping into the cave. Also if global warming caused a decrease in the bat population of Bexar County that could affect the amount of debris on the floor of the cave to attract insects. It could also affect the insect population which might actually be a bonus to the Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver if there were more. However, an increase in the fire ant population would be detrimental to the cave’s inhabitants as these tend to eat other insects and animals (Dept. of Interior). No pictures were available of this extremely rare spider.
Sources
Department of the Interior: Fish and Wildlife Service. Feceral Register/Vol. 63, No. 250/Wednesday, December 30, 1998. Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Proposal to List Nine Bexar County, Texas Invertebrate Species as Endangered. Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/SpeciesReport.do?spcode=J01D.
Gander Academy. Caves Theme Page. Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/CITE/cave.htm.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Species Profile: Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver (Circurina venii). Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/SpeciesReport.do?spcode=J01D.
Zipcode Zoo. Cicurina venii (Veni’s Cave Spider). Retrieved 20 February 2007 from http://zipcodezoo.com/Animals/C/Cicurina_venii.asp.
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