The wheel spider or golden wheel spider (Carparachne aureoflava), is a huntsman spider native to the Namib Desert of Southern Africa. This spider is distinct from Leucorchestris arenicola, a spider sharing the same common name and found in the same locale.[1] The spider escapes parasitic pompilid wasps by flipping onto its side and cartwheeling down sand dunes at speeds of up to 44 turns per second.[2][3]
| Wheel spider | |
|---|---|
| |
| Burrow | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Subphylum: | Chelicerata |
| Class: | Arachnida |
| Order: | Araneae |
| Infraorder: | Araneomorphae |
| Family: | Sparassidae |
| Genus: | Carparachne |
| Species: | C. aureoflava
|
| Binomial name | |
| Carparachne aureoflava Lawrence, 1966
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| Synonyms | |
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Characteristics
editWheel spiders are up to 20 mm in size, with males and females the same size. The wheel spider does not make a web; it is a nocturnal, free-ranging hunter, coming out at night to prey on insects and other small invertebrates. Its bite is mildly venomous, but the spider is not known to be harmful to humans.[4]
Its principal line of defence against predation is to bury itself in a silk-lined burrow extending 40–50 cm deep. During the process of digging its burrow, the spider can shift up to 10 litres (2.6 US gal) of sand, 80,000 times its body weight. It is during the initial stages of building a burrow that the spider is vulnerable to pompilid wasps, which sting and paralyze the spider, then lay eggs in its body. If the spider is unable to fight off a wasp, and if it is on a sloped dune, it will use its rolling speed of 1 metre per second (3.3 ft/s) to escape.[5]
References
edit- ^ "Carparachne aureoflava". ZipcodeZoo.com. BayScience Foundation, Inc. 2008-08-13. Retrieved 2009-01-21.
- ^ "The Desert is Alive". Living Desert Adventures. 2008. Archived from the original on 2008-09-27.
- ^ Armstrong, S. (14 July 1990). "Fog, wind and heat - life in the Namib desert". New Scientist (1725). Retrieved 2008-10-11.
- ^ Leroy, Astri; John Leroy (2000). Spiders of Southern Africa. Cape Town: Struik Publishers. p. 81. ISBN 1-86872-944-3.
- ^ Mark Gardiner, ed. (April 2005). "Feature Creature" (PDF). Gobabeb Times. p. 3.
- "Carparachne aureoflava Lawrence, 1966". World Spider Catalog. 14.6. Natural History Museum Bern. doi:10.24436/2. Retrieved 10 September 2023.
Further reading
edit- Henschel, J.R. (March 1990). "Spiders wheel to escape" (PDF). South African Journal of Science. 86: 151–152. ISSN 0038-2353.
External links
edit- "Animal Olympians: Gymnastics" on YouTube, featuring a rolling golden wheel spider