Pelican-like spiders specialize in cannibalism

The spider assassinated in Madagascar's jungle has a protruding part like a pelican to grab other spiders.

Researchers found 18 new pelicans (peilica) living in Madagascar, Science Alert reported. The peilica spider was first discovered in 1854 as a specimen preserved in amber mass 50 million years from the Eocene. At first, naturalists thought it was a primitive extinct creature long ago.

Simulating the way of hunting the pelican spider.(Video: YouTube).

In 1881, researchers found spiders living in Madagascar. They became famous because of their distinctive shape like pelicans. This spider is relatively small, only 2-8mm long, has a stretched head and a "mine" part protrudes from the jaw.

Pelican spiders are also known as assassination spiders because of the way they hunt and their target of hunting. Instead of lurking in the spider web to catch prey, they will wander in the jungle at night, following the silk path by other spiders. When determining the prey position, the pelican spider snatches the spider web of prey, mimicking the static action of the struggling insect. As soon as the prey appears, they immediately attack, using their "pelican" to bite into the unfortunate spider.

Their habitats are remote forests in Australia, South Africa and Madagascar. The distribution position combined with its small size makes them extremely rare.

Hannah Wood, an expert in spider and polyhedra classes at Smithsonia National Museum of Natural History and entomologist Nikolaj Scharff at the University of Copenhagen, identified 26 species of pelicans in the report published in ZooKeys. .

Pelican spider has a special shape.(Photo: Smithsonia).

Wood and Scharff teamed up to examine and analyze hundreds of Madagascar pelican spider specimens caught during fieldwork and museum collections, categorizing them as species with scientific descriptions. Focusing on Eriauchenius and Madagascarchaea genera , the team divided the pelicans into 26 species, including 18 completely new species. Although all have pelicans, 26 species can be distinguished based on characteristics such as jaw length, number of spines and abdomen.

The interesting thing is that the pelicans live today are very much like preserved specimens in amber, turning them into living fossils. Wood's group continues to search in Madagascar."I think there are many species that have not been described or recorded , " Wood said.