21 Totally Sweet Spider Superlatives.

Pedro_P

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

1of 22

Credit: Shutterstock
▼ Super spiders
Spiders are incredibly diverse creatures. They can be the size of the period at the end of the sentence… or the size of your face. They can live in deserts, in the tropics, in Siberia and even underwater. They can be docile or deadly, ground-dwelling or web-spinning.
To highlight the incredible accomplishments of arachnids, biologist Stefano Mammola of the University of Turin and his colleagues rounded up 99 of their most mind-boggling records in a publication in the open-access journal PeerJ. It's a wide-ranging list, but we've picked 21 of our favorite entries and paired them with pictures of the spiders that deserve a little bit of recognition. These records might just make you see arachnids in a whole new light.
2of 22

Credit: Paul Selden/Revue Suisse de Zoologie/ CC  BY 4.0
Largest fossil spider
Now here's a new twist on Jurassic Park: The largest fossil spider ever found comes from the middle of that era, some 163 million to 174 million years ago.
The species is Mongolarachnidae jurassica.Found fossilized in Inner Mongolia, China, this species had a body length of 0.7 inches (1.65 centimeters) and legs up to 2.4 inches (6 cm) long.
3of 22

Credit: Paul Selden/Revue Suisse de Zoologie/ CC  BY 4.0
Oldest fossil spider
Spiders are eight-legged old souls. These arachnids have witnessed the breakup of Pangaea, the rise and fall of the dinosaurs, and the expansion and retreat of the polar ice caps. The oldest fossilized spiders date back around 300 million years, with the trophy for oldest going to a species calledPalaeothele montceauensis. Discovered in Montceau- les-Mines, France, the fossil shows an impression of a spider about 0.5 inches (1.2 centimeters) long.
4of 22

Credit: Nature Picture Library/Getty
Biggest family
The prize for most unwieldy family reunions goes to …Saltidicae! This group, better known as the jumping spiders, includes more than 6,000 individual species. Jumping spiders are a fascinating bunch. They have the best vision of any spidersand often put on fantastic mating displays, complete with  snazzy dances. One fuzzy little jumping spider in England even learned to jump on  command.
5 of 22 (▪ ▪ ▪)

► Please, continue reading this article here: Source