New Peacock Spiders Discovered:
On a trip trudging through the wet and cold of southern Western Australia last year, Jurgen Otto rediscovered a dancing spider dubbed the Hokey Pokey.
And in the process, he stumbled across a species never before classified.
Along with his colleague David Knowles, Dr Otto has discovered most of the 70 known species of peacock spider — and he loves them.
It's because, he says, they're more like dogs or cats, or people, than spiders.
"They're very charming animals. They've got these big eyes, and it's very easy to like them ... I've often compared them to puppies and kittens."
"They're curious, they get excited, they push themselves up on their legs to see better, they crouch down and hide.
"They're not like a grasshopper or something that just doesn't show any [emotion], they're more like us than other invertebrates."
[...] In a paper published this week in the journal Pekhamia [PDF-88.7MB], Dr Otto and his colleague David Hill officially gave a name to the Hokey Pokey: Maratus tortus, with "tortus" being Latin for "twisted".
[...] He's put together a website in his spare time with photos documenting each of the species.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @09:04PM (2 children)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA1shkhjIY_QiDdYfEYDqew [youtube.com]
cool stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @09:07PM (1 child)
needs undertale's spider dance version.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @09:10PM
nvm found it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD_xBrdVpPY [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @09:13PM (6 children)
The rule in Australia is that if it lives outside and has eyes, it'll kill you.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @09:20PM (1 child)
Death by kookaburra!?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @09:28PM
They attack lizard people.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by archfeld on Monday July 23 2018, @10:10PM
LOL That sounds like the general rule here in Arizona as well. If it survives here it has huge thorns, is venomous or poisonous. One of scariest thing you can do here is to go outside in the wee hours with an ultraviolet (black light) and see the desert floor fluoresce. Scorpions in particular glow at night when exposed to UV light. The desert crawls.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @12:00AM (1 child)
Look at the size https://www.peacockspider.org/size/ [peacockspider.org]
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday July 24 2018, @12:50AM
Wow. Big hand!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @12:07AM
Or it's edible.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Monday July 23 2018, @09:39PM (2 children)
> southern Western Australia
> "They've got these big eyes"
> "They're curious, they get excited, they push themselves up on their legs to see better, they crouch down and hide."
You know what else does that ? Giant muttafucking tigers, that's what! And those only half the legs, and don't live in Australia!
Step back slowly to the door, and hope they don't know how to pick locks yet.
Don't . you. blink ...
(Score: 4, Funny) by takyon on Monday July 23 2018, @10:17PM (1 child)
If a lockpicking spider evolves, it will do so in Australia.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by coolgopher on Tuesday July 24 2018, @08:29AM
I think we'll get clock-making spiders first...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @10:39PM
Common domestic spiders over here: the thin ones, when they feel threatened, instantly pull on the web so to rotate and confuse the enemy. I thought it was unintentional while they tried to regain balance, but they stop and get still instantly when all seems OK.
The fast, sometimes 4 inch long, fuzzy legs but reportedly not very dangerous, instead, may get on their back retracting the legs, becoming unresponsive to tugs. Again, they flip back to spider shape in an instant.
The jumping spider that got on the windshield of the car, moved when the speed was slow, but aligned itself to the vertical axis and retracted legs every time i sped up the car so not to be blown away by the air. Fascinating.
We have some thin looking millipedes too, fast and difficult to catch (a transparent box works well).
One time I spend 3 minutes trying to evict one from the tub (I hate squishing insects), I throw it out of the window, it does not crumble down, it planates. Very elegant. A bird was probably also impressed and ate it.
One night I go to the kitchen, open the lights and voila, I find one on the sink, it stands still for a second and trots, instead of running, away. I swear it looked like it was pissed I disturbed it.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @12:08AM (1 child)
I watched the video, and... does anybody know how fast these spiders are?
I swear the spider looked like bad stop-motion-animation. One frame the spider was here, and the next it was a centimeter rotated around the branch. With it's "tail" wagging it looked legitimate, but... how fast are these things exactly? It must be terrifying for creatures smaller than it.
Barring that, is there any domestication potential for these things? I've been told that rats make good pets (as in ones which are captive-raised, not the average feral one in the gutter)... I could picture the same for these. If a tarantula can work, why not a peacock spider?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @01:24PM
They're slightly faster than most Australian spiders. The pretty colours are actually caused by doppler shift.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by slap on Tuesday July 24 2018, @02:46AM
Spiders? Just no.
Snakes are fine, as long as they are not venomous. I'll pick up wild ratsnakes and move them out of the way to a safe location - no problem. Handling boas or pythons? Easy peasy. Spiders? No.