' These spiders sit there on the water and then all of a sudden an insect will hit the water and the spider races out to get it, grabs it, dives under the water and then swims back to the shore and starts eating it,' Robert Raven, Principal Scientist of Arachnology at the Queensland Museum, said.
The mother's midgut had already started breaking down while she guarded the eggs, Salomon and her colleagues report in the April Journal of Arachnology. And by the time the pale youngsters hatch, liquefied gut suitable for baby mouthparts is building up in her abdomen.
Charles Griswold, Curator of Arachnology, Joel Ledford, postdoctoral researcher, and Tracy Audisio, graduate student, all at the California Academy of Sciences, collected, analyzed, and described the new family.
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