A new species and genus of tarantula found in Colombia has been named Kankuamo marquezi in honor of the famous writer Gabriel García Márquez . The tarantula is characterized by throwing balls of stinging hair to attack its victims.
It would be the first tarantula of a subfamily to use its stinging defense hairs for direct attack. Its name also refers to an indigenous people from the region of the Caribbean coast, whose language is in danger of extinction.
The finding has been published in the magazine ZooKeys and its authors have concluded that:
The morphological characteristics present in Kankuamo marquezi open a discussion about the phylogenetic relationship between the subfamilies of tarantulas Theraphosidae and the evolutionary pressures that gave rise to the stinging hairs.
Via | Sync