Eyeless Huntsman Spider

Huntsman spider, like other spider species, normally has with eight eyes. But the scientists found a species of huntsman spider who do not have eyes. The spider is a newly discovered cave dwellers who live in permanent darkness.

Eyeless huntsman spider (Sinopoda scurion). (Picture from: http://www.livescience.com/)

Peter Jager, Head of Arachnology at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, Germany, reported that he found the spider in a cave in Laos, about 100 kilometers of Xe Bang Fai a giant cave river. Spider is named Sinopoda scurion was the first species of spiders were eyeless than 1,100 species of huntsman spider.

Front view of Sinopoda 
scurion. The spider’s 
eyes are completely  
missing. (Picture from:  
http://www.livescience.com/) 

"We already know there is a spider genus from the other caves, but they always have a complete eye and pigmentation," said Jager. "Sinopoda scurion is the first huntsman spider who has no eyes."

In a report published in the journal Zootaxa, Jager explained that this regression may have occurred because the animals live in total darkness. Some relatives of spiders other cave dwellers who lived in Asia also shows a similar transition to adapt to the cave environment. "Starting from the eye that serves eight to six, four, and two lenses, to the eyeless spider," said Jager.

Spiders also have a number of neighbors who live in caves, the scorpion Troglokhammouanus steineri and Vietbocap lao from Xe Bang Fai and Nam Lot cave, a blind cavefish (Bangana musaei) from the Xe Bang Fai cave system, and a freshwater crab found in the same location as the eyeless huntsman. *** [LIVESCIENCE | KORAN TEMPO 3969]

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