Follow Live Science, Facebook & Google+. The study describing the spider species was published April 17 in the journal Zootaxa.įollow Agata Blaszczak-Boxe on Twitter. "We tried to imitate the movement of the spider" while building the model, Rechenberg told Live Science. The robot - named Tabbot after "Tabacha," which means spider in the Berber language - can move by both walking and turning somersaults, just like the creature it's modeled after. In fact, the flic-flac moves propel the spider across the sand at some 6.5 feet per second (2 meters per second), which is twice as fast as its walking speed. Inspired by the spider's unusual movement mechanism, Rechenberg, a bionics expert, developed a 10-inch-long (25 centimeters) model of a spider robot. rechenbergi is nocturnal and lives in the Erg Chebbi desert in southeastern Morocco, close to the Algerian border. To protect itself from the sun and predators, the animal weaves tubelike "towers" in the sand that are held together by silk threads. Cebrennus rechenbergi, also known as the Moroccan flic-flac spider and cartwheeling spider,1 is a species of huntsman spider indigenous to the sand dunes. In fact, the flic-flac moves propel the spider across the sand at some 6.5 feet per second (2 meters per second), which is twice as fast as its walking speed. Cebrennus rechenbergi is a nocturnal spider native to the Morocco’s southeastern desert, Erg Chebbi. And while all Zoan devil fruits grant the user two main transformations, consisting of a full and a hybrid form. Strengths and Weaknesses As all other Zoan type devil fruits, this fruit grants the user with physical transformations of a spider. If provoked or threatened it can escape by doubling its normal walking speed using forward or backward flips similar to acrobatic flic-flac movements used by gymnasts. Flic-Flac Spider are a species of spiders that are said to be the speediest spiders in the world. On the other hand, its Tunisian relative moves only by rolling its body down sand dunes. Cebrennus rechenbergi, also known as the Moroccan flic-flac spider and cartwheeling spider, is a species of huntsman spider indigenous to the sand dunes of the Erg Chebbi desert in Morocco. “I picked it up by hand - I wasn’t scared,” Dr Rechenberg said.The spider propels itself off the ground and moves its legs in a flic-flac motion to go uphill, downhill or on level ground. A new species of spider, dubbed the flic-flac spider or Cebrennus rechenbergi, from the Erg Chebbi region of Morocco has been described in the science journal Zootaxa. Dr Rechenberg spotted the spider five years ago while taking an evening stroll (with a bright flashlight) in Erg Chebbi, a sand desert in south-eastern Morocco. Officially, the spider has been named Cebrennus rechenbergi, after Ingo Rechenberg, a bionics expert at the Technical University of Berlin. Just as odd as the flic-flac spider’s escape method are its tube-shaped homes. The huntsman spider species called the Moroccan flic-flac spider (Cebrennus rechenbergi) has a unique way of moving. On even ground, the spider is twice as fast in rolling mode than when walking, while on uneven surfaces, it is. Although the newly discovered spider usually does its flips forward, it can do a backflip as well, Dr Jäger said, justifying its nickname, a gymnastics term for a back handspring. This unique movement makes the flic-flac spider ideally adapted to its surroundings. Professor Ingo Rechenberg, a bionics professor at Berlin Technical University, discovered it there in 2008. It lives in the Erg Chebbi desert on the edge of the Sahara. He describes the new spider in the journal Zootaxa.Īnother arachnid, the golden rolling spider, exhibits a similar flipping behavior, but can only roll rapidly downhill, with the aid of gravity the flic-flac spider can do its tumbling uphill, as well as on level ground and downhill. The biological role model for the BionicWheelBot is the cartwheeling spider (Cebrennus rechenbergi). rechenbergi as a medium-sized huntsman spider. The spider lives in a tubelike structure it weaves in the sand, staying hidden under a sandy lid and emerging at night in search of food.Īt first Dr Jäger mistook the spider for a sister species that lives in Tunisia and Algeria, but was able to distinguish the two through a close comparison of their copulatory organs. After observing small variations in the genitalia of the two species and noticing the distinctive flic-flac motion of the spider, Jger confirmed its status as a new species.
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