New spider discovered that disguises itself as a leaf

A new species of spider has been discovered with a novel way of keeping its presence under wraps. So subtle is the newly found creature that you could mistakenly pluck it from a nearby tree with no idea it was an arachnid until you had a handful of spider.

Rather than hanging out all day on a web the new spider instead disguises itself as a leaf. The masquerade is so convincing, the spider has even grown a ‘tail’ to mimic a stalk.

Matjaž Kuntner, of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, came across the spider while in China’s Yunnan province.

With his fellow researchers, Dr Kuntner was shining his torch light at spider silk strands when he came across a patch of odd looking leaves.

“If there’s a web, there’s a spider,” he said.

As they investigated, the team found what they suspected to be an entirely new type of spider and the first known variant to try its luck at pretending to be leaf.

“Better known in insects, plants, birds, and fish, masquerade in arachnids involves only a handful of spiders ... that resemble flowers, dead twigs, plant detritus, buds, bark, or bird droppings,” said Dr Kuntner in the Journal of Arachnology. “However, genuine leaf masquerade has not been known in arachnids.”

In order to look the full leaf, the spider bunches its legs tightly together so it doesn’t give the game away.

Its back, almost tear dropped shaped and speckled green with markings like plant veins, resembles a living leaf. When it turns, the other side of its body is dull and brown and looks like a dead leaf.

A stalk shaped appendage from the abdomen completes the disguise.

The orb-weaving spider then surrounds itself with a wardrobe of actual dead leaves, which it hangs with silk, so any predators have an even harder time spotting it.

As the leaves shrivel the spider can show its ‘live’ or ‘dead’ side to fit in.

So far, Dr Kuntner’s team has only found two of the leaf spiders and research is now being done into whether it is indeed a new species.

Australia has its own leaf loving spider. But these spiders, rather than mimicking leaves, fashion them into homes to hide from the heat of the sun and confuse prey.

Like the new species, phonognatha graeffei’s presence is detected by a mysterious leaf, hanging seemingly, in midair.

Commonly known as the leaf-curling spider, the species can be found in gardens across Australia. Living in pairs, the spiders curl a leaf — or even a piece of scrap of paper- and then hang it in the centre of a web.

Only the spider’s legs are visible which protrude from the leaf and touch the web. The second an insect wanders or flies into the web, the spider leaves its leaf house and strikes.

Originally published as Freaky new spider’s cunning disguise