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Pelican Spider

rare

Pelican Spider

Eriauchenius workmani

Habitat
Leaf litter and low foliage of Madagascar's humid montane forests
Body length
4 mm
Order
Araneae · Archaeidae

Weird but real

It hunts only other spiders, following silk draglines and plucking webs to lure victims onto its long fang-tipped jaws.

Why it's cool

A living-fossil assassin with a giraffe neck and spear-tipped jaws, holding doomed prey at arm's length like a tiny medieval jouster.

Photographs

Figure 8; Eriauchenius workmani Pickard-Cambridge, 1881. A male (CASENT9010050) habitus, lateral view B female (CASENT9010045) internal genitalia, dorsal view D–F, L male right pedipalpal bulb (CASENT9010058) image reversed G–I left pedipalpal bulb (CASENT9003490) J–K left pedipa
Wood HM, Scharff N (2018) A review of the Madagascan pelican spiders of the genera Eriauchenius O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1881 and Madagascarchaea gen. n. (Araneae, Archaeidae). ZooKeys 727: 1-96. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.727.20222 · CC BY 4.0 · source
Figure 3; Eriauchenius andriamanelo sp. n. A male (CASENT9004508) habitus, lateral view. B, L female (CASENT9003265) internal genitalia, arrow showing sclerotized T-shaped projection: B dorsal view L posterior view D–F male right pedipalpal bulb (CASENT9010070), image reversed C,
Wood HM, Scharff N (2018) A review of the Madagascan pelican spiders of the genera Eriauchenius O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1881 and Madagascarchaea gen. n. (Araneae, Archaeidae). ZooKeys 727: 1-96. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.727.20222 · CC BY 4.0 · source