--- description: This lil' dude is more athletic than you title: Watch This Spider Cartwheel His Way Across the Desert image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Newsfeed](/tag/time-section-newsfeed/) ## Newsfeed Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Watch This Spider Cartwheel His Way Across the Desert by [Bijan Stephen](/author/bijan-stephen/) ## Bijan Stephen Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close May 7, 2014 8:48 PM CUT by [Bijan Stephen](/author/bijan-stephen/) ## Bijan Stephen Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close May 7, 2014 8:48 PM CUT Arachnophobic? Don’t watch this video. German scientist Ingo Rechenberg discovered a new, acrobatic species of huntsman spider in the Erg Chebbi region of Morocco, according to [a recent study](http://biotaxa.org/Zootaxa/article/view/zootaxa.3790.2.4 "undefined") authored by biologist and spider expert Peter Jäger. When threatened, the little arachnid (_Cebrennus rechenbergi_) actually flips itself out of harm’s way, earning itself the name “the flic-flac spider”. Though not strictly a biologist himself, Rechenberg works in the related field of bionics—the application of biological methods and systems to the study and design of engineering. As such, he’s developed a robot that mimics the flic-flac spider’s odd locomotion. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/91411/watch-this-spider-cartwheel-his-way-across-the-desert/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/91411/watch-this-spider-cartwheel-his-way-across-the-desert/"},"headline":"Watch This Spider Cartwheel His Way Across the Desert","datePublished":"2014-05-07T20:48:44.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:09:29.010Z","description":"This lil' dude is more athletic than you","url":"https://time.com/91411/watch-this-spider-cartwheel-his-way-across-the-desert/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Science topic","spiders"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Bijan Stephen","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/bijan-stephen/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/91411/watch-this-spider-cartwheel-his-way-across-the-desert/","name":"Watch This Spider Cartwheel His Way Across the Desert"}}]}] ```