How One of the Fastest Spinning Animals Catches Its Prey

If you blinked, you would have missed it. Flattie spiders or wall crab spiders, which make up the Selenopidae family, have the fastest leg-driven turning maneuver of any land animal. Although their rapid turns are blurry to the naked eye, the crawlers are on par with the speeds of aerial spinners like hummingbirds and fruit flies. But now, researchers from the California Academy of Sciences and the University of California Merced are taking an in-depth look at these speedy spiders. By using slow-motion cameras, they've been able to identify how these animals can lunge for prey so quickly.