DETAILS
- Discipline
NH: ZOOLOGY: INVERTEBRATES: CHELICERATES (SPIDERS, SCORPIONS, TICKS, HORSESHOE CRABS)
- Scientific Name
Colossendeis arcuata
- Common Name
Sea Spider
- Status
STATUS: Cited
- Place Collected
NE North Atlantic, (place collected)
- Form
wet preserved
- Dimensions
overall: 161 mm x 105 mm x 105 mm 1167 g
- Description
-
Sea spiders or Pycnogonida are a group of arthropods quite unlike any other. They have very reduced bodies and long legs which contain some of their digestive and reproductive organs. There are around 1300 known species found throughout the world’s oceans and although mostly seen in shallow waters they have been collected from over 7000 metres deep.
Sea spiders range in size from a few millimetres to about 90cm long and generally have four pairs of legs and a long proboscis that they use for feeding. They are predators and scavengers and eat marine invertebrates such as sea anemones and sponges.
This specimen was collected during a voyage of the Research Vessel Walter Herwig during the 1970s. It is significant because it was the first British record of this species, the third European record and only the seventh time it has been mentioned in scientific literature. It was identified and written about by Roger Bamber an expert on the life of sea spiders. - ID Number
Z.1981.165.1
- Location
In storage
- Terms