Platnick, who died in 2020, was the world's foremost spider taxonomist. The spider was ultimately sent to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, to the desk of Norman Platnick. The spider taxonomist out there couldn't identify it either.” It went from there to the California Academy of Science. And so I sent it to a colleague at Texas Tech. “And he wanted me to help him, and I couldn't identify it. “And when he tried to identify it, he couldn't identify it,” Horner said. The patterning of its eight tiny eyes was unique, and unfamiliar. But then Broussard encountered a spider – less than 3 millimeters long, and nearly translucent – that stood out. It began in 1999, when Greg Broussard, one of Horner's students, was using “pitfall” traps to collect and catalog Dalquest spiders. It's ground zero for the “mystery spider” saga. But, hey, it's fun.”Īnd though he's retired, he travels regularly to the university's Dalquest Desert Research Station, on the Presidio-Brewster county line south of Marfa. “I'll be 81 my next birthday,” Horner said, “and I never thought 20 years ago that I'd still be chasing these spiders. And now, researchers are gaining surprising - if grisly - insights into this tiny Chihuahuan Desert creature.Īrachnologist Norman Horner is professor emeritus at Midwestern State University, in Wichita Falls. There's no better example than Myrmecicultor chihuahuensis, the “Texas Mystery Spider.” Its discovery two decades ago launched an international scientific journey. Unknown creatures flourish in its recesses, or under cover of desert night. The very bones of the planet are exposed.īut this land conceals as much as it reveals. In open deserts and prairies, in rugged badlands, the Earth's bedrock realities are visible here. In 1938, the artist Alexandre Hogue - a member of the so-called “Dallas Nine” - created one of his most famous West Texas paintings, called “Mother Earth Laid Bare.” It's a resonant title.
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