New spiders named after Bob Marley

Scientists have discovered a water-adapted species of spiders and named it after Jamaican reggae legend Bob Marley. In 2009, the sea along the coastline of Queensland in Australia receded to such an extent that it exposed a population of spiders.

Researchers associated their emergence with Marley’s song “High Tide or Low Tide”. In a study published in the journal Evolutionary Systematics, researchers from Queensland Museum in Australia and University of Hamburg in Germany described the intertidal spider. Unlike the spiders which people are familiar with, the intertidal species have adapted to the underwater life by hiding in barnacle shells, corals or kelp holdfast during high tide.