life scientist have described 18 new species of pelican spider , a bizarre kinsperson of spider - hunting spider – half clumsy - looking , half terrific – that are so obscure scientist assumed they were extinct for many decades .
The discovery came through analyse hundreds of pelican wanderer in the fatheaded forests of Madagascar and painstakingly sifting through specimens left in the Smithsonian ’s National Museum of Natural History . As explain in a new study publish in the journalZookeys , the researchers managed to successfully sieve the pelican spiders into 26 different species , 18 of which have never before been scientifically described before .
One of these new specie , Eriaucheniusmilajaneae(the odd - looking guy pictured above ) was named after lead research worker Hannah Wood ’s girl and is the only know specie that could be found on a distant mountain in the southeast of the island .
Pelican spiders are a favorite cult figure among scientists due to their unknown appearance . On top of have super - rangy ramification , they also have long mouthparts that adhere out from the " heading , " a little bit like the angled bill of a pelican , hence the name . They are also vicious assassin who loved to dine out on other spider , using silk draglines to track down their quarry and flick out their prodigal spiked appendages to impale them .
" These spiders manifest to the unique biology that diversified in Madagascar , " Wood , the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History ’s curator of arachnid and myriapod , tell ina statement . you may also find pelican spider in Australia and South Africa , although it ’s often said that the one with the longest necks can be found in Madagascar . This distribution across the Southern Hemisphere indicates that the evolutionary ancestors of pelican spiders were propagate through the breakup of the supercontinent Pangaea around 175 million long time ago .
" I think there ’s going to be a deal more species that have n’t yet been key out or documented , " Wood predicted .
Pelican spiders are practically " living fossils , " Wood explained . The first spider of this form was expose in 50 million - twelvemonth - previous gold during an expedition in 1854 . Combined with the fact that they await uncannily like to species in the fossil record from 165 million years ago , the scientists assumed they were an extinct house . Nevertheless , biologists managed to total across a living specimen in Madagascar in 1881 .
Almost 140 year on , they now have another 17 buddies to join their ranks .
