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The Fabulous, Cartwheeling Flic-Flac Spider
If spiders terrify you, you're not alone. Most of us agree they are horrifying, unsettling little poisonous things, and if you think differently we have bad news: When spiders can't smell fear in a human, they wait until they're asleep and crawl into their ears and mouth. Anyone not scared of spiders has at least 12 of them living and nesting inside their body at any time.
And while we're sharing fun facts about spiders, one of the most ferocious family of spiders is Sparassidae. They're known as Huntsman spiders and they're not only leaping, agile predators; they're pants-shittingly huge.
Geoffrey Dabb
"Let's make a bet. I can jump onto your face before you can make a fist. Go."
But every family has an embarrassing member and the black sheep of the Sparassidae clan is the flic-flac spider. It was discovered by Professor Dr. Ingo Rechenberg less than 10 years ago during a Moroccan desert jaunt, and it's fucking stupid. The flic-flac somehow, after generations of hunting desert prey, adapted itself to travel by lunatic cartwheel.
Peter Jager/Ingo Rechenberg
Seriously.
Look at this ridiculous thing go. It's like it spends its whole life falling down the stairs. The flic-flac got its name from the gymnastics move it uses to travel (obviously). It can move up to 4.5 mph this way, which sounds like a brisk walk, but would scale to something like Mach 1 at human size. While other spiders worked out how to build enormous webs and pit traps, flic-flacs were somehow given the ability to always look like they're celebrating.
Peter Jager/Ingo Rechenberg
"She kissed me! She kissed me!!! Wheee!!! Oh god, oh god, I can't stop! Why can't I stop?! AIIIIEEEE!!!"
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