so cool, yet so creepy

from: http://www.seeker.com/new...n=carousel

The yet-to-be-named spider can make itself look like a dangling, dried-up leaf.

In the animal kingdom, sometimes the best survival strategy is to pretend to be something you're not — either to ambush unsuspecting prey or to convince predators that you're not very tasty.

And scientists recently discovered a spider that uses a unique masquerade to hide in plain sight. It is the only known spider to have a body that bears an uncanny resemblance to a dangling, partly dried-up leaf.

The find was reported in a new study, though the spider is yet to be described and assigned a species name.

The newfound costumed arachnid is in the Poltys genus in the orb spider family, which contains more than 3,000 species and one spider celebrity from children's fiction — a Araneus cavaticus was the barn spider Charlotte from the classic story "Charlotte's Web" (Harper and Brothers, 1952).

Masquerading is far more common in insects than in arachnids. In fact, many types of insects have bodies that mimic plants. For example, the Phasmatodea order contains hundreds of species of so-called stick insects, which look like bare branches or leaves. And brightly colored orchid mantises have petal-shaped legs to complete their disguises as harmless flowers, tricking other insects into flying close enough for the mantises to snatch them out of the air.

But about 100 spider species also sport physical features that make them appear inanimate and unappetizing, like a jumble of twigs, plant debris or a messy glob of bird poo.

This is the first known spider species to be leaf-shaped. And its discovery was accidental, according to the study's lead author, Matjaz Kuntner, a principal investigator with the Evolutionary Zoology Lab at the Biological Institute Jovan Hadzi, Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

The scientists spied and photographed the unusual arachnid in 2011, while looking for other types of spiders in Yunnan, China. They found the individual — a female — on a twig, surrounded by dead leaves and with no web nearby. The researchers noted that her back looked like a living, green leaf, while the underside of her body was brown, mimicking a dead leaf, and a hairy, stalk-like structure protruded from her abdomen.

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purplethunder3121 said:

That's cool. It's amazing that they are still finding new species.

It's not a frog, so I'm cool.

RodeoSchro said:

It's not a frog, so I'm cool.

it probably EATS frogs

Purplestar88 said:

That's cool. It's amazing that they are still finding new species.

quite a bit of our planet remains unexplored

Bet he is an orger.

Nature is so weird.