Want to learn something new and nightmarish today? There is an arachnid in the rainforests of Ecuador that looks like a big black dog’s head sitting on eight super-long yellow legs. Shivers.
As science writer Ferris Jabr pointed out when he tweeted the image, originally taken by scientist and photographer Andreas Kay, the dog head looks like something straight out of the third Harry Potter. (Sirius? Is that you?) The critter is formally called a Bunny Harvestman thanks to its rabbit-like ears. The bizarre body is only about as big as your thumbnail.
Harvestmen are in the same family as the docile daddy longlegs—an arachnid, but not actually a spider. These creatures are not venomous and have been around for 400 million years, before even dinosaurs roamed the earth, writes Kay in a post on the website Rumble. We don’t know why this harvestman has the yellow eyespots and ears that make it look like a mammal head—the actual eyes are below the spots—but it might be to look bigger and more intimidating to predators, writes Kay.
There’s a lot we still don’t know about the Bunny Harvestman, but there is currently no evidence that its appearance is an omen of death. But you still won’t forget that face any time soon.
