An international team of marine biologists has described a new species of intertidal spider from tropical Queensland, Australia, and named it after the internationally renowned Jamaican reggae singer and songwriter Bob Marley, whose song ‘High Tide or Low Tide’ inspired the researchers as the spider lives in a ‘high tide low tide’ habitat. The study is published in the journal Evolutionary Systematics.
The Bob Marley’s intertidal spider (Desis bobmarleyi), male holotype. Image credit: Robert Raven.
Intertidal spiders have a remarkable biology in that they are truly marine animals.
They hide away in barnacle shells, corals or the holdfasts of kelp during high tide where they built air chambers from silk.
Once the sea water recedes, though, they are out and about hunting small invertebrates that roam the surfaces of the nearby rocks, corals and plants.
The newly-discovered species, the Bob Marley’s intertidal spider (Desis bobmarleyi), is described based on male and female specimens spotted and collected from brain corals.
“Both sexes of the new species are characterized by predominantly red-brown colors, while their legs are orange-brown and covered with a dense layer of long, thin and dark grey hair-like structures,” said team leader Dr. Barbara Baehr, from Queensland Museum and the University of Hamburg.
“The females appear to be larger in size with the studied specimen measuring nearly 9 mm, whereas the male was about 6 mm long.”
While the exact distribution range of the Bob Marley’s intertidal spider remains unknown, it is currently recorded from the intertidal zones of the Great Barrier Reef at the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia’s ‘Sunshine State.’
Dr. Baehr and colleagues also re-described two close relatives of the new species: Desis vorax from Sāmoa and Desis hartmeyeri from Western Australia.
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B.C. Baehr et al. 2017. ‘High Tide or Low Tide:’ Desis bobmarleyi sp. n., a new spider from coral reefs in Australia’s Sunshine State and its relative from Sāmoa (Araneae, Desidae, Desis). Evolutionary Systematics 1: 111-120; doi: 10.3897/evolsyst.1.15735
