![]() ![]() This spider's incredible adaptation is fascinating.”īack in the lab, the scientists compared the tarantula’s DNA and physical characteristics to similar species and pinpointed key differences, including their coloring. “We are amazed to discover that they can also thrive in highland evergreen forests. Another expedition revealed the spider living in evergreen trees, a separate ecosystem. In this case, the team spotted a blue tarantula in the hollow of a tree, which they had to climb to lure the animal out. ![]() ( Watch a tarantula crawl out of its own skeleton.) The tarantula is also the first ever discovered in a mangrove forest in Thailand, study leader Narin Chomphuphuang, an arachnologist at Khon Kaen University in Thailand, says via email.įor the study, Chomphuhuang and colleagues went on an expedition to the mangroves of Phang-Nga Province, searching at night in the humid, muddy vegetation for a tarantula’s telltale sign: Shroud-like webs covering its burrow. If you change your angle the color will change a little bit,” while colors made from pigment don’t change with the angle of your view. Such structural colors often create iridescence, says Ling Li, an associate professor at Virginia Tech who collaborates with Kariko in studying spider colors. When hit by light, nanostructures in the cells reflect a blue color back to our eyes, says Kariko, who wasn’t involved in the new study. Though pigments form other colors in animals, such as red and yellow, the process is different with blue. (Learn why science still can’t explain blue tarantulas.) ![]() Kariko, an arachnologist at Harvard University. Of the 900 known tarantula species, only about four percent have any blue coloring, says Sarah J. The spider, named Chilobrachys natanicharum, was already known in the pet trade as the electric blue tarantula, but a recent study published in the journal Zookeys finally confirmed it as a unique species. The spider, which can measure nearly three inches long, sports iridescent streaks of neon color on its legs, back, and mouthparts. Yet the color is rare in nature-especially not in “a blue-violet hue resembling the color of electrical sparks,” which is how a research team described a new species of tarantula in southern Thailand. Between the sky and sea, nature appears to favor blue, as do we humans. ![]()
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