Somersaulting Flic-Flac Spider Discovered in Southeastern Morocco
Posted on April 29, 2014
Dr. Peter Jager, spider expert at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, has described a new species of spider, Cebrennus rechenbergi. The spider is also known as the Flic-Flac Spider. It is the only spider that is able to move by means of flic-flac jumps. Like a gymnast, the spider propels itself off the ground, followed by a series of rapid flic-flac movements of its legs. The spider can move at almost 2 meters per second.
The spider lives in the sand desert Erg Chebbi in southeastern Morocco. It makes tube-like homes.
The spider is named after Dr. Ingo Rechenberg from Berlin, a bionics expert who discovered the spider during an expedition in Morocco. Rechenberg was so inspired by the spider and its somersaults that it built a tiny robot inspired by it called The Tabbot. The video shows both the spider and the robot. Take a look:
A research paper on the spider was published here in the journal Zootaxa.