The genome of Daddy Longlegs has been sequenced and researchers have created Daddy Shortlegs: NPR. made
Moses Yarborough,
“One of the unique things about my dad’s long legs is the ability to roll the ends of their legs,” said Vanessa L. Gonzalez, a computational genomicist at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.
Caitlin M. Baker
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Caitlin M. Baker
“One of the unique things about my dad’s long legs is the ability to roll the ends of their legs,” said Vanessa L. Gonzalez, a computational genomicist at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.
Caitlin M. Baker
To get an idea of why scientists want to study my dad’s long legs, the next time you see one, play the “One of these things is not like the other” game.
“If you saw a father with long legs moving, he would effectively walk on only three pairs of legs,” Gilmy Giant said. He is a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The remaining pair of legs, he adds, are swinging through the air and exploring the spider’s surroundings.
And if they find something interesting, they can have it.
“One of the unique things about Daddy’s long legs is the ability to roll the ends of their legs, which was achieved by breaking them up into dozens of tiny articulated pieces called tarsomers,” Vanessa L. Natural History, he told NPR.
Gonzalez said you can think of emojis as being like the part between your knuckles.
A single leg can hold dozens of logs, making it incredibly versatile. To find out how the spider developed this ability, Gonzalez, Genet, and their fellow researchers sequenced the genome of the long father—and eventually were able to create a short-legged father by manipulating his genes.
