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Thomas Frey - Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute
February 14th, 2006 at 6:16 am

The Assasin Spider

The worlds most deadliest spider, to other spiders. Check out the picture, rather weird looking.

Researchers scouring the remote forests of the African island nation of
Madagascar have found that tiny assassin spiders, grotesque-looking
bugs that prey on other spiders, are more diverse than previously
thought.

They may be small, but Assassin spiders are among the most dangerous
spiders on the planet – if you’re another spider, that is. These tiny
arachnids in the Archaeidae family are only about 2 mm (less than 1/8
inch) long, but their bizarre fangs and spider-hunting practices have
earned them a reputation as the world’s most grotesque spiders. They
hunt by stabbing their prey with venom-filled fangs that are attached
to the ends of extremely elongated jaws. These specialized jaws are
about ten times longer than the jaws of most other spiders their size.
To support these long jaws and prevent them from dragging along the
ground, Assassin spiders have also evolved elongated necks. The
combination allows them to strike their prey without having to approach
too closely.

These spiders don’t build webs to snare their dinner. They use their elongated jaws to stab their prey with venomous fangs. Photo: Jeremy Miller

These
spiders don’t build webs to snare their dinner. They use their
elongated jaws to stab their prey with venomous fangs.

The bizarre-looking assassin spiders were once widely found around
the world, but now are found in Madagascar, Australia and South Africa.
About a dozen species of assassin spiders were previously discovered.

Assassin spiders, which grow to less than an eighth of an inch long,
are notorious for stabbing helpless spiders with their sharp,
venom-filled fangs attached to their super-sized jaws. Assassin spiders
also possess very long necks so they can attack their prey from a
distance.

They do not spin webs to entrap their prey and they pose no threat to humans.

The fossil record shows that Assassin spiders were once widely
distributed across the planet, but today they are known only from
Australia, South Africa, and Madagascar. Until recently, only about a
dozen species were recognized. However, nine new species are about to
be added to the list, almost doubling the known members of the family.
For the past few years, Academy entomologist Charles Griswold and San
Francisco State University graduate student Hannah Wood have been
working to document the spiders of Madagascar as part of the Academy’s
ongoing arthropod survey of the country. Since the survey was started
in 2000, over 2 million arthropod specimens have been processed. Among
them, Griswold and Wood noticed a number of tiny Archaeidae spiders
that looked suspiciously like new species.

Wood conducted molecular and morphological studies and found that
nine new species of Assassin spiders were included in the specimens
from Madagascar. Surprisingly, the DNA data also revealed that the
presence of elongated necks among Archaeidae spiders had evolved at
least two separate times. A classic example of convergent evolution,
her findings suggest that the need to strike out at prey from a
distance encouraged the evolution of extended body parts on more than
one occasion.

 

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