New Family of Spiders, With Claws, Found in Oregon Cave

New Family of Spiders, With Claws, Found in Oregon Cave

Amateur cave explorers have found a new family of spiders in the Siskiyou Mountains of Southern Oregon, and scientists have dubbed it Trogloraptor — Latin for cave robber — for their fearsome front claws.

The spelunkers sent specimens to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, which has the West Coast’s largest collection of spiders. Entomologists there say the spider — reddish brown and the size of a half dollar — evolved so distinctly that it requires its own taxonomic family — the first new spider family found in North America since the 1870s.