Newly-discovered 'flic-flac' spider tumbles across the desert
By RYAN GORMAN
Video has emerged of a spider that rolls across the desert like a tumble weed.
The Moroccan spider is not very big, but can move faster and more efficiently across sand dunes than most humans.
The terrifying arachnid runs a short distance, extends its legs and spins into the air only to keep the momentum going with its hind legs, amazing footage shows.
It has been been nicknamed the flic-flac by scientists who studied it at a German museum, according to the New York Times.
The flic-flac is able to move at a rate of 6.6 feet per second while tumbling, but only for a long enough distance to escape predators.
"I can't see any other reason," Dr. Peter Jäger, of the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Frankfurt, told the paper. "It is a costly move. If it performs this five to 10 times within one day, then it dies."
The creature normally emerges from its sandy lair only at night to search for food, according to Jäger.
A robot created to mimic the spider's movements had great difficulty moving across sand at the same rate of speed despite being much larger than the flic-flac.
The Moroccan spider is not believed to be poisonous to humans.
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