Hello and welcome to a Fun Fact From Flora ,

Today we are going to have a look at a very cool example of a not so loved arthropod — the spider. Now spiders get a lot of criticism for being I don’t know — too hairy and too leggy and too moving-around-ish? Unsure.

But look how much fun this peacock spider is having.

That could be you too!! Plus (not what this fact is about) but peacock spiders are actually really sexy.

Look at the pretty colours.

Anyways. I am gonna tell you about a very, very cool spider. The diving bell spider (see it sounds romantic already).

Now what is kinda funky about these spiders is that they spend their ** entire lives underwater .

I KNOW. WILD. They are the ONLY spider that we know about that does that.

I can tell what you’re thinking — of course Flora only likes this spider because it lives underwater. Figures. But it’s actually a VERY cool dude.

This is what it looks like:

YES that silvery looking thing around his abdomen is in fact AN AIR BUBBLE that he has trapped there using very hydrophobic hairs all around his abdomen known as a plastron. That really is an impressive amount of hair.

Oh and I forgot to include the coolest part of this image. Whoops. Silly me.

HE HAS BUILT HIMSELF AN UNDERWATER LAIR IN WHICH TO DWELL.

Wowza.

The way he does this is by constructing the underwater web (easier said than done) and then taking lots of trips to the surface, gathering all of that sweet sweet air on his hairy body, and then travelling down into the web and shaking all those air bubbles off. They are then trapped inside the diving bell (that’s what it’s called — isn’t that heavenly?) and up he goes to the surface again to get more. He will do as many trips as it takes to fill that diving bell.

This takes a whole bunch of different kinds of silk. Some that anchor the diving bell to the plants around it, some are used for the actual nest , some are used as trip wires that detect the vibrations of insects nearby. When an unfortunate insect comes too close, these guys will ambush them and retreat into their lovely airy nest.

I imagine it feels exactly like this.

What is also amazing is that the walls of the diving bell are permeable to gases and so oxygen can infuse into the diving bell and carbon dioxide can diffuse out. The spider still needs to fetch fresh air every now and then, they’re very good at monitoring the oxygen concentration around them.

ISN"T HE SO COOL.

Hope you enjoyed this crazy spider fact.

Lots of love,

Flora xxx