5/31/2006: New species found
 

http://cellar.org/2006/newspecies.jpg

First posted on the Cellar by elspode, thanks spode!

Picture this: a team is digging in a rock quarry in the middle of Israel, drilling into a kind of chalk that's impervious to water. Maybe they're trying to figure out what's down there, what kind of resources are available in the quarry. 100 meters down, they reach a layer of... nothing.

It's a cave. And it's massive: 2.5 kilometers long, 100 meters deep. With a huge lake - expected, because the cave happened when the water eroded away limestone between layers of chalk where the water didn't erode.

And it's been completely sealed off from the outside world... for ages and ages... perhaps millions of years... until the drill went through its roof.

Found so far are eight new, previously unknown species of beast, including the scorpion-like being.

http://cellar.org/2006/newspecies2.jpg

Who knows how this species first got into this little, cut-off system. Perhaps there was a time, 100,000 years ago, when the cave was closer to ground and a nest of burrowing scorpions dug into the cave. But during its time there, it has gone through evolutionary changes. Since there's never been light in the cave, it's blind, and it has little to no coloration.

Maybe there are scary bacteria bacteria that can kill us! But maybe they'd be killed by sunlight. Who knows, but it makes me want to be a spelunking evolutionary zoologist/bacteriologist. Or maybe not.

How come when they go finding new species it's never a unicorn or pegasus-like creature, but a gross, yucky thing like that?

I suspect it would be more likely that the drill let in the scary bacteria to kill them. Larger ecosystems breed scarier critters, in general.

I hope they're tasty with butter.

I guess horses with aftermarket mods just don't survive for some reason.

Because they evolve in the dark, acidic hell-holes of the real world, instead of the glorious fantasy world that only exists in your imagination.

It always gets back to the food.

Always glatt. Always.

I love this kind of thing. Means that we are a few steps away from something huge. If you can find eight new species digging in a quarry, well, there is a quarry down the street....

Fundamentally, though we try to ignore the fact most of the time, life is inherently yucky.

Anybody who's been present at a birthing or an autopsy has seen evidence of this.

Wonder what would be discovered here?

Whatever it is, it ain't kosher.

Funny, that's also what the scorpion-lobster thing said to itself when the first human explorer showed up.

Because They're Made Out Of Meat.

in related news...

we have successfully wiped out 7... no, wait... there it is, make that 8 new species within 36 hours of their discovery. It's a new world record folks!

Why? Were they Palestinian critters? :haha:

This so tickles my archaeology bone, it makes me want to take the first flight to Israel and go look myself.