If God were real, he would be a lunatic.

This is a recently discovered species of assassin spider. The type of spider was found last year on the island of Madagascar. It preys on other spiders by injecting them with venom out of it's enormous (relatively) fangs, and extending it's long neck to attack it's prey from a distance. Yes, this spider has a neck. Yes it's one of the scariest looking things I can imagine. Luckily they only grow to be, at largest, 2mm in size, but we're just finding out about this type of spider and have already discovered 9 different species of them, so who's not to say that there are some that eat birds or dogs. Another interesting fact about these buggers (or bugs, well arachnids technically) is that this genetic variation has come up at least twice in independent paths of evolutionary history. From Animal Planet News:

The genetics of the new assassin spiders have yielded yet another surprise, said Griswold. The genetic map of the assassin spider family history suggests the long necks and jaws evolved more than once, in what's called convergent evolution, he said.

Convergent evolution is analogous to two people stumbling onto a very similar solution to a problem independently of each other. Apparently, the longer necks are an effective solution that caught on more than once. It's just a little family secret that's impossible to detect if you're just looking the spiders themselves, said Griswold.

Anyway, I'm probably going to have nightmares tonight, and I suggest you do the same. Nature is capable of more bizzare things than we could ever come up with on our own. These new spiders are just a few more examples.



from: Wikipedia: Assassin Spider
National Geographic News
Animal Planet News