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.

Flattie spiders can sense prey approaching from any direction and whip around in a record-breaking one-eighth of a second to strike, new research has found. High-speed footage reveals that a swift flex of their long legs helps the hunters accomplish this feat. According to the researchers, their spin is the fastest leg-driven turning maneuver of any terrestrial animal, and also one of the fastest turns on the planet - on the same level as rapid airborne spinners such as hummingbirds and fruit flies. The researchers are now modeling the spiders' spins to help make multi-legged robots and other machines more maneuverable in tight spaces. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of California Merced and the California Academy of Sciences involved using high-speed video cameras to document the movements of individuals from the Selenopidae spider family - commonly known as flattie spiders.