“I picked it up by hand - I wasn’t scared,” Dr Rechenberg said. Dr Rechenberg spotted the spider five years ago while taking an evening stroll (with a bright flashlight) in Erg Chebbi, a sand desert in south-eastern Morocco. Officially, the spider has been named Cebrennus rechenbergi, after Ingo Rechenberg, a bionics expert at the Technical University of Berlin. Although the newly discovered spider usually does its flips forward, it can do a backflip as well, Dr Jäger said, justifying its nickname, a gymnastics term for a back handspring. He describes the new spider in the journal Zootaxa.Īnother arachnid, the golden rolling spider, exhibits a similar flipping behavior, but can only roll rapidly downhill, with the aid of gravity the flic-flac spider can do its tumbling uphill, as well as on level ground and downhill. Binding sand together with silk, the spiders build burrows in the sand dunes that protect them from the scorching daytime heat (they are nocturnal) as well as those cartwheel-inducing predators.The spider lives in a tubelike structure it weaves in the sand, staying hidden under a sandy lid and emerging at night in search of food.Īt first Dr Jäger mistook the spider for a sister species that lives in Tunisia and Algeria, but was able to distinguish the two through a close comparison of their copulatory organs. 292 views, 13 likes, 0 loves, 0 comments, 6 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from Ovnis Videos: Like the flic-flac spider, the BionicWheelBot can both walk and roll. Just as odd as the flic-flac spider’s escape method are its tube-shaped homes. A new species of spider, dubbed the flic-flac spider or Cebrennus rechenbergi, from the Erg Chebbi region of Morocco has been described in the science journal Zootaxa. In fact, if on an especially predator-packed day the spider has to use this maneuver too many times, it can actually die of exhaustion. Cebrennus rechenbergi, also known as the Moroccan flicflac spider, is a species of huntsman spider indigenous to Morocco. When it’s not being chased by a predator, the flic-flac spider would just assume a walk like its less gymnastic cousins, since the handspring move requires a ton of energy. Unlike its relative from Namibia, the golden rolling spider, which is restricted to passively rolling down sand dunes, the flic-flac spider uses its legs to create a rolling motion. Unlike the golden wheel spider that can only tumble down a declining slope, the flic-flac spider can manage completely flat surfaces and was even observed trekking up inclines.īelow is video of the flic-flac spider doing its thing and the Tabbot robot mimicking that thing. While the motion may look similar, it is fundamentally different, since the flic-flac spider’s muscles, not gravity, are powering the flips. Most of the time, the somersaults are performed forwards, but Jager did observe the spiders occasionally rolling backwards as well. When provoked or threatened, the flic-flac spider literally flips out. If you’re a learned student of unusual spider locomotion, this little tumbler may remind you of the golden wheel spider native to the Namib desert, which cartwheels downhill to evade predators. Most spiders defend themselves with a bite, but this species It busts a move. Inspired by Rechenberg, Jager named the spider after him. Inspired by his find, Rechenberg designed a robot called Tabbot based on the spider’s movement. Peter Jager, a spider expert at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt for identification. Cebrennus rechenbergi, also known as the Moroccan flic-flac spider and cartwheeling spider,1 is a species of huntsman spider indigenous to the sand dunes. Ingo Rechenberg, who was immediately captivated by the spider’s movement and passed the critter on to Dr. In an odd twist of fate, the flic-flac spider was first discovered in the Moroccan desert by German bionics expert Prof. This escape maneuver, which can spin the arachnid forward at around 6 feet per second, has already inspired a concept for robots that tumble across loose sand. It uses an incredibly agile hand spring motion to evade predators: It cartwheels. A new species of spider, dubbed the “flic-flac spider” or Cebrennus rechenbergi, from the Erg Chebbi region of Morocco has been described in the science journal Zootaxa. If anybody ever decides to start an arthropod olympiad, we now know which species will be a contender for the floor exercise. Weird Feature(s): Hand-spring getaway, totally tubular houses Range: The super sandy Erg Chebbi region of Morocco
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