Male Nephila spiders look tiny in comparison to "giant" females

A new and rare species of "giant" orb web spider has been discovered in Africa and Madagascar. In the journal Plos One, researchers describe Nephila komaci as the largest web spinning spider known to science. Only the females of this groups of species are giants, with a leg span of up to 12cm (4.7in); the male spiders are tiny by comparison. Scientists say the female spiders are capable of spinning webs that reach up to 1m (3ft 3in) in diameter.

Orb-weaving spiders are a widespread group which take their name from the round webs they typically spin. The new spider was identified by Matjaz Kuntner, a biologist from the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and his colleague Jonathan Coddington, from the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC.

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News Source: BBC Science
Image credit: Matjaz Kuntner/BBC