Moroccan Flic-flac Spider

Image: Prof. Dr. Rechenberg
Cebrennus rechenbergi

THIS. This is what we've all been waiting for. After the Mauritanian Flim-flam Beetle and the Austro-Hungarian Wibble-wobble Toad, we've finally found ourselves a Moroccan Flic-flac Spider.

Stilt-legged Fly

Image: Laura Gooch

Flies on stilts! Because sometimes even tiny flies need to big themselves up.

Blind Lizard

Image: Brown, Rafe

Here's an opportunity to impress your friends with your astonishing knowledge of a creature no-one has ever heard of! You could even start a rumour that its salivary glands hold the cure to wrinkled skin disease but the skincare-industrial complex keeps it under wraps. Who's to know?

Red-headed Mouse Spider

Image: Jason Bond
Missulena occatoria

Look at this sexy devil!

Bird's Nest Fungus

Image: Monica R.

Teeny bird nests with tiny eggs in! Are the fairies raising chickens now?

Jaw Worm

Image: Matthew Hooge

Molluscs range from mussels who sit around in their shell all day doing nothing, to active, wide-eyed, predatory squid. Arthropods can have 6 legs, 8 legs or several hundred legs. Chordates can have lungs and a backbone, no lungs and a backbone or no lungs and no backbone either.

These are among the most famous and diverse of the animal phyla; splendidly bountiful branches of the tree of life. But let's not allow their mind-boggling variety cause us to overlook the more stark branches with their tiny animal life that barely anyone has ever heard of.