There is a great whip spider boom. What gives?

Amblypygids became his version of Kola Cave. It was difficult to find the laboratory at first. However, once he did so, he became a prolific contributor to the Harvey spreadsheet, describing new species from East Timor to Belize. Looking at his work, it seems that there is a ruthless army of weak-tailed beasts on the move, but this is not the case. In most cases, de Miranda said, “It’s just a lack of people looking for.”

Cora has Looking, though-not specifically for amblypygids, but for anything that lived in an Italian bunker in 2003. He is not the only one. Trieste is near the top of Italian boots, between the Slovenian border and the Adriatic Sea. To the east is a plateau full of galleries and grottoes. Kola calls it the birthplace of cave science. This claim is controversial, but the region’s long-standing obsession with caves is not the case: between 1880 and 1920, approximately 2,000 local caves have been described, and since 1945, members of the Trieste Alpine Club have been Explore everything from mushrooms to caves to historical sites. The influx of so many people into the natural tunnels outside the city—and the humans below—seems unlikely to let the weak-footed animals go unnoticed.

The whip spider’s research world is very small. Soon after the club saw the first weak-tailed spider, De Miranda participated in Cora’s research. This is not a new species. In fact, it is a resident of the sewers of Jerusalem and Turkish caves-this is the species he recently helped to record for the first time in Jordan, where it was expected, in mainland Greece, where it was not there. Amblypygids are tropical and subtropical regions, and Jordan has a suitable climate. Until recently, no one has recorded this species in this place, but it is presumed that the insects are there. However, it was colder in Athens, and De Miranda was not sure whether the population there was a local or a foreigner. But Trieste is more than 1,000 miles northwest. Hebets, who was not involved in the project, has heard of unreported rumors of weak skin animals in Italy. However, for De Miranda, this particular area seems incredibly cold.

This bunker is called Kleine Berlin-Little Berlin-and consists of four different shelters, three of which were built for Italian civilians and one for German soldiers. Inside, Colla can see parts of the earth recovering from the past, some places are wartime graffiti, others are stalactites, here are toilets, and there are lava-like mineral coverings on the walls and floors. The whip spider was found on the Nazi side in a 260-foot-long damp tunnel near the courthouse, scattered with rusty relics, forbidden to enter. They were there, clinging to the wall: not just a weak-tailed ape, but the entire population. He and his colleagues counted nine in total. Eventually, the green baby appeared on the adult’s back, with small antennae and legs crossed, de Miranda said, “like noodle soup.”

But as far as the researchers know, the entire population of Trieste is female. This means that they are likely to reproduce without any males, using a strategy called parthenogenesis-“virgin childbirth” in Greek. This is a trick seen in certain arachnids, insects, crustaceans and even reptiles to lay eggs without involving gender. Many-including these amblepygids, seem to be versatile, sometimes mating and sometimes having children alone.

The trigger for one way or the other may be environmental factors. “This may be a factor of density, you have reached a certain age-‘I have not encountered any species like mine, I just want to start laying eggs,'” Mercedes Burns explained, he is a Arachnid at the University of Maryland in Baltimore County. How it works in amblypygids is still unclear, but in other organisms, the chromosomes of the egg double on its own, or the egg has undergone an artificial fertilization. Some cells involved in egg development also contain chromosomes. They will not fall off as usual. They can function like sperm, providing the missing parts so that offspring have all the genetic material they need. Generally speaking, this kind of operation is risky-a bad curve ball, the entire population may go bankrupt-but it is very convenient for stowaways: single women can go anywhere and find their clone outpost.