Bob Marley spider makes top 10 list of remarkable species

Amarine spider named after the late reggae legend Bob Marley has made it to a scientific register’s top 10 list of remarkable species discovered worldwide in 2017. The World Register of Marine Species, managed by 300 scientists from around the world, listed the furry species among the top 10 most remarkable species discovered in 2017 earlier this week.

According to the Australian Sunday Morning Herald, the spider was discovered late last year in Queensland, Australia. The species was named Desis bobmarleyi after the reggae legend because of its ‘adventurous and resilient spirit’.

The scuba-diving spider builds air chambers from silk, allowing it to adapt to underwater life and hide in barnacle shells and corals along the Great Barrier Reef. It was discovered by the Queensland Museum’s Dr Barbara Baehr and Dr Robert Raven.

“Desis bobmarleyi is a small spider with a six-millimetre-long body and long hair like his namesake. It uses this long hair on its legs and abdomen to create an air bubble around its middle that enables it to breathe and survive between the high and low tide zones,” Dr Baehr said in the article.

“During high tide these extremely rare and unusual animals hide in the air chambers, but during low tide they are vagrant hunters found on corals, barnacles or debris. It was this behaviour that inspired us to name this new inter tidal species in honour of Bob Marley’s hit song High Tide Or Low Tide, which played during our field research in Queensland’s Port Douglas.”