These desert spiders put sandcastle builders to shame

By Elizabeth PennisiDec. 15, 2017 , 5:05 PM

Anyone who has tried to build castles in dry sand knows the challenges desert digging spiders face. Because the grains don’t stick together, it’s hard to dig a burrow and keep its walls from collapsing. Even so, the "flic-flac" spider, Cebrennus rechenbergi—famous because it can cartwheel quickly across the desert—builds a tunnel 25 centimeters deep and uses it daily for shelter from Morocco's hot sun. Likewise, its neighbor, a newly discovered wolf spider called Evippomma rechenbergi makes tunnels, too. Yet they use different tactics, researchers report this week in the Journal of Arachnology. The flic-flac spider picks the right spot to dig, then pushes sand together and scoops it up in a basket formed by fine bristles that overlap. Lacking these bristles, the wolf spider instead glues sand particles together by connecting the grains with fine silk threads. 

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Furry 'Harry Potter' Spider Discovered in Mountain Burrow

By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer | July 7, 2017 05:00pm ET

A newly identified wolf spider looks so much like Aragog, the giant, fictional spider from the "Harry Potter" series, that the creature is being named after the colossal arachnid, a new study reports.

The naming opportunity was too good to pass up, the researchers said. The animatronic puppet created for the movie "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" was based on the anatomy of a wolf spider, said study co-researcher Alireza Zamani, a graduate student of animal biosystematics at the University of Tehran in Iran.

"We found out that there was an extreme similarity between our spider and Aragog as he was depicted in the second film," Zamani told Live Science in an email. "Since it was also the 20th anniversary of the whole 'Harry Potter' series, we thought it might be a good idea and celebration of this wonderful franchise" [to name the spider after Aragog].

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