It’s time to give up going outside, as scientists have just discovered a super creepy new spider that sneakily diguises itself as a leaf.
Contents
show
Arachnologist and professional spider-hunter Matjaz Kuntner, from the Smithsonian Institute, stumbled upon the unusual spider in China’s Yunnan rainforest.
Although plenty of other animals in the insect world are known to disguise themselves as plants to fool other animals, this is the first time a spider has been seen exhibiting this behavior.
This sneaky web spinner uses its clever camouflage to avoid predators and sneak up on prey (shudder).
In two weeks of searching, Kuntner’s team only found two of the species, suggesting that this spider is either super rare or just so hard to spot, even professionals can’t find it.
Although there probably aren’t any of these creepy crawlies in the US, we’ll never look at a leaf the same way again…
