The Antarctic White Ice Spider
The New
York Times, March 27, 2011, reported the discovery of a rare White Ice
Spider in a crate that had been shipped from the Port Lockroy museum in
Antarctica to the Discovery Museum at 226 W. 44th Street, Times
Square in New York. The crate contained exhibits from the long history of
Antarctic exploration beginning in 1819. Included in the exhibit is the
actual ice pick used by Roald Amundsen to break the ice and plant the first
marker at the South Pole on Dec 14th 1911. The
exhibits will be here in New York for the 100th anniversary of
that marker and will return August 2012, arriving during the short summer
window.
The unexpected traveler, is believed to be the first specimen of the
Latrodectus friblanco (Common
Name Antarctic White Ice Spider) ever to have survived outside of
Antarctica. This Arachnid has
earned itself the nick name White widow maker, because its poison is
chemically similar to that of the Black Widow,
Latrodectus hesperus,
but the bite seems to be more dangerous to males of any given species.
The Ice spider is one of the most venomous of
all Arachnids and the spiders will occasionally bite the foot of an
unsuspecting male Emperor Penguin while the females are off catching fish.
With a mortality rate of close to 50% in larger male animals like the
Penguins and even humans, the White is ten times as deadly as the Black
widow who only kills about 5% of her animal victims.
It is easy to see why the White Ice Spider has earned the reputation
as a widow maker.
Although pure white to blend in with its
frozen environment, there is visible on the abdomen of adult specimens what
looks like a blue ice sickle in about the same place as the infamous hour
glass on its cousin, the black Widow.
The ice sickle is only visible while holding the spider upside down
at the proper angle to the midnight sun, sort of like the colors a butterfly
displays only at certain angles.
Touching the spider, of course, is extremely dangerous, but “seeing the ice
sickle” has for more than a hundred years been sort of a rite of passage for
explorers and scientists arriving in the Antarctic.
The danger being that in order to hold one of the three inch little
monsters requires using your bare hands.
That can be quite a harrowing experience at twenty-five below zero.
When asked if any other “Whites’ might have
been in the crate, Dr.
Edward
Shackleton, grandnephew of Sir Ernest Shackleton a famed Irish adventurer
who explored Antarctica in 1907, said “Anything’s possible with the widow
maker.” Shackleton himself has
been left partially paralyzed on his entire right side by a White’s bite in
1957 during an International Geophysical Year (IGY) study of global
temperature change.
Tickets for the exhibit will go on sale at Ticketron starting this coming
Saturday, or may be purchased at the door.
Discounts for school groups are available.
Or visit our website
www.AprilFoolsDay.com
©2011 Sean Allen
