Environment Animals Wildlife Spiders Beware, beachgoers: New spider discovered in California's sand dunes Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Just in time for Halloween, researchers have identified a new species of trapdoor spider. The newly discovered is about the size of a quarter, brown, and pretty chunky. It's the fourth known species of trapdoor spiders in California whose habitat is limited to sandy coastal dunes. Female trapdoor spiders are basically vampires .

Beachgoers could be safer thanks to a new technology with the potential to give real-time updates of rip currents. Rip currents are narrow, fast-moving segments of water that travel away from the shore. They can reach speeds of 2.5 meters per second, which is quicker than the fastest Olympic swimmer. NIWA and Surf Life Saving New Zealand (SLSNZ) have developed a state-of-the-art rip current identification tool using artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning. The tool showed around 90% accuracy detecting rip currents in videos and images in trials.

The isolated Twin Lake beach outside of Minneapolis is known as a haven for freewheeling summer behavior, a place where sunbathers feel comfortable socializing, drinking, and occasionally taking their tops off. According to local authorities, the beach has also been the site of sexual assaults, drownings, drunk driving, and other illicit behavior, drawing regular complaints from nearby homeowners. On July 10, police decided to take action. But instead of sending on-foot officers to the scene to hunt for rule-breakers, they flew their zoom camera–equipped DJI Matrice drone over the beach, in hope of catching them in the act. Police reasoned that the drone could help them deescalate things by avoiding unnecessary personal interaction, in light of the pandemic and the police brutality protests that had ignited over the death of George Floyd at the hands of an officer in late May, in nearby Minneapolis.

A large tiger shark was seen Friday near the South Beach in Miami, Florida, swimming dangerously close to beachgoers, who had no idea a predator was floating inches away from them. Photographer Kenny Melendez was flying his drone above the South Beach waters at 8 a.m. EST on Nov. 24, hoping to get some scenic shots and show his cousin how drones work, when he noticed a sizeable shadow near a swimmer, Miami Herald reported. That is when he panned the drone camera close to the water, hovering it just 15 feet above the surface. As it turned out, the shadow was an enormous tiger shark that was swimming really close to the sandy beach of Miami. Melendez decided to let his drone follow the shark around for the next 10 minutes, as it swam up to unsuspecting beachgoers wading in the waters.