Giant Sea Spider

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Giant Sea Spider
Species:	Colossendeis colossea
Category:	Deep-Sea Life
Length:	35cm (1ft 2in)
Appearance:	A crab with a very small, flat body and eight extremely long red segmented legs.
Location: (EO)	Abyss
Location: (EO2)	Zahhab Region Depths
Time:	Day and night
Dangerous:
Forms:	Adult only

The giant sea spider (Colossendeis colossea) is an animal found only in abyssal regions. It appears in both Endless Ocean and Endless Ocean 2.

In-Game

Marine Encyclopedia

Endless Ocean

Description

"These fascinating creatures have thin, red bodies with four pairs of long limbs and two pairs of shorter ones. Larger specimens can actually have a leg span of almost 2 feet. They can be found year-round in the deepest parts of the ocean.

These arthropods have a proboscis, or elongated mouthpart, that is almost as large as their entire torso. Also, their internal organs and genitalia are actually contained within their legs.

They have a set of short legs called the ovigers, which are used to help protect and raise their young. Despite bearing a distinct resemblance to a spider, the species is entirely different."

Endless Ocean 2

Description

"Its long, narrow, red body has four pairs of long legs and two pairs of shorter ones that contain its intestines and reproductive organs.The male protects the eggs inside one pair of its shorter legs, known as ovigers. Although it looks like a land-based spider, it is completely classified as a different species."

Location

Endless Ocean

These can be found under zoom-mode glows on the seafloor in the Abyss.

Endless Ocean 2

A few can be seen in The Zahhab Region Depths in Osiris' Courtyard at coordinates D-3NW.

Behavior

This creature is found only under zoom-mode glows, either by itself or in pairs. In Endless Ocean 2, the zoom-mode spots this creature occupies sometimes have a humpback anglerfish or two instead.

Gallery

The giant sea spider as it appears in the first Endless Ocean game.

Notes

Real-Life Information

1/2

• The description from the first game states that larger giant sea spiders can have a leg-span of almost 2 feet (0.61 meters) across. This is true; they hold the world record for the largest species of sea spider, hence their name, and their legs can reach 2 feet 3 inches (0.70 meters) across. While most members of the sea spider class are relatively small, species that live in the Arctic regions and in deep waters - like this species - can reach much larger sizes like these.
  • The name for the phenomenon of polar species reaching larger sizes is "polar gigantism", which affects other species of sea spiders. Colossendeis colossea, however, is instead an example of deep-sea gigantism, which is as it sounds - deep-water species being larger than their shallow-water counterparts.
  • The entire genus that the giant sea spider belongs to, Colossendeis, houses large species of deep-sea sea spiders (compare to the word "colossal").
• Both games accurately state that the giant sea spider keeps its internal organs inside of its legs, including a shorter pair, called "ovigers", that are used in reproduction. The second game specifically points out the male's role in protecting the eggs until they hatch, which is also true. This is something that applies to these sea spiders' entire class. Pycnogonida.
• As is reported in the first game, the giant sea spider has a remarkably long proboscis, but the game reports it as being slightly shorter than the body, which is inaccurate. In reality, the proboscis can range from being half-again as long as the body to almost twice as long.
• Both games are correct in reporting that the sea spider is a completely different species to any land spider. However, that does not mean it is a kind of crustacean instead; It is actually something called a pycnogonid, a member of the class Pycnogonida.
  • Members of this class are more closely related to animals like land spiders and scorpions (arachnids) than they are crabs and lobsters (crustaceans); arachnids and pycnogonids are both members of the subphylum Chelicerata, while crustaceans occupy the subphylum Crustacea.

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