The name itself is kind of a triple indictment: it’s a spider, it has big fangs and it jumps. Not much to like, right? Unless you’re a big-fanged jumping spider of the opposite sex. The new species of arachnid, found in 2012 in Kinabalu Park in Borneo, uses its fangs for combat, but also, its discoverers from the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in The Netherlands believe, in its courtship rituals. It turns out Kinabalu is fertile ground for new spider species; the park yielded 10 to 15 species of novel jumping spiders in 2012. Because you can never have enough of them.
Science & Space
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2. Big-Fanged Jumping Spider
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Top 10 Green Stories
- 10. Superstorm Sandy Brings Climate Change Home
- 9. Offshore Oil Drilling Begins in the Arctic
- 8. Climate Change Goes Missing in the 2012 Election
- 7. 2012 on Track to Be the Warmest Year on Record
- 6. Arctic Sea Ice Melts to Record Low Levels
- 5. The Battle Over Keystone XL
- 4. The U.S. Oil Boom
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Top 10 New Species
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- 8. The Auburn Tiger Trapdoor Spider
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- 6. Peruvian Porcupine
- 5. Peruvian Small-Eared Shrew
- 4. The Congolese Cercopithecus Lomamiensis Monkey
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- 2. Big-Fanged Jumping Spider
- 1. Peruvian Night Monkey
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