Scientists pay tribute to Bob Marley High Tide or Low Tide by naming a rare marine spider species after him

Scientists pay tribute to Bob Marley High Tide or Low Tide by naming a rare marine spider species after him In a new find, researchers have spotted a new species of the spider near the coastlines of Australia The spider is discovered by a team of researchers headed by Dr. Barbara Behr of the Queensland Museum and is named after Jamaican legend Bob Marley. This discovery has been associated with Marley’s song “High Tide or Low Tide” by the Researchers. The study was published in the journal Evolutionary Systematics, researchers from Queensland Museum in Australia and the University of Hamburg in Germany described the intertidal spider.According to the reports, the experts explain the spider with their two relatives from Samoa and Western Australia. This creature is unusual than other spiders it is truly marine. It covers in barnacle shells and builds air chambers from silk which enables them to breathe underwater. image source In 2009, the sea along the coastline of Queensland in Australia receded to such an extent that it exposed a population of spiders. 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. To breathe, they build air chambers from silk. Once the sea water recedes, though, they are out and about hunting small invertebrates that roam the surfaces of the nearby rocks, corals and plants. The new species, listed under the scientific name of Desis Bob Marley, is described based on male and female specimens spotted and collected from brain coral. Both sexes are characterised by predominantly red-brown colours, while their legs are orange-brown and covered with a dense layer of long, thin and dark grey hair-like structures. The females appear to be larger in size with the studied specimen measuring nearly nine millimetres, whereas the male was about six millimetres long. While the exact distribution range of the newly described species remains unknown, it is currently recorded from the intertidal zones of the Great Barrier Reef on the north-eastern coast of Queensland. “The song ‘High Tide or Low Tide’ promotes love and friendship through all struggles of life,” researchers said. “It is his music that aided a field trip to Port Douglas in coastal Queensland, Australia, to collect spiders with a highly unique biology,” they said. Scientists believe that these new species have decreased in last few years and maybe these spiders are close to the extinction. Thought marine spiders are known from many areas of the Australian Coast, but it appears the people rarely notice them.Experts continue that more research is required to understand the function and how these species behave to unlock the key secrets of marine spiders.]]>