Be Excellent To Each Other

What is this... Thing? It only seems to have six legs rather than a spider's eight. What's that thing at the front? Why are it's legs all different lengths?

Will it kill me?

Oh, it's leg span is about 4"/10cm.

http://www.amentsoc.org/insects/what-bu ... t-key.html

Hemiptera or Diptera?

I think it just fell from a really long way up.

Is it a normal spider that got caught between Goblins and Nets?

It's a Bulgarian Fire Beetle - they don't often turn up in the UK. It's long legs means it's exceptionally fast, and it can jump several yards - due to the shape of it's body it can emit a high-pitched keening sound whilst doiung this. It feeds in the wild by leaping from trees onto the faces of large mammals ( cows, normally, but occasionally humans ) where those long probes at the front bore into the prey's eyeballs using their sharp chitin tips, along with a type of exuded acid. The then lay their eggs in the cavity, and when the larvae hatch they burrow down the optic nerve into the brain, where they feed, eventually causing the hosts death.

You evil sod!

But also, well played.

Looks like a crack.

Yeah, thanks for that.

I asked the @NHM_id team on twitter, but the account doesn't seem very active anymore

Hehe, no, it's definitely alive.

It's the random length of its legs that is bothering me most.

It's a spider that lost in a fight with your kitchen knife.

In your kitchen you will find 2 whole dogs and cats re bits of legs.

Wtf, phone. How did you turn "legs and some" into some guff about dogs and cats.?

I your keyboard Dave.

It is fantastic

So he really was just missing some legs... And bits of legs.

Living in the future is ace.

It's a bow tie skeleton.

Cretaceous period.

The Cretaceous period has eclipsed the Oxford comma as one of the most misused forms of punctuation.

This was fucking funny, by the way.