Assassin spider
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| iAssassin spiders | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||
|
Assassin spiders are a group of spiders of the family Archaeidae, which are extremely unusual in that they have very long necks vertically separating their head from their thorax by nearly the length of their body itself. They prey upon other spiders, snagging them by surprise with fangs that are proportionately many times larger than those of any other spider.
Assassin spiders are native to Australia and Africa (including Madagascar), one species occurs in South America. They are only known to grow to 2 mm in size. They were first known from remains trapped in amber, which were found in Europe in 1854, and were not known to have living varieties until 1881.
There are actually two genetic lines of the spider, which evolved this complex solution to catching prey independently, in a stunning example of convergent evolution.
Nine new species were described from Madagascar in 2003, bringing the total number of known species to about 30.
