MAMMA MIA! New type of spider named after ABBA

By Jim Leffman via SWNS

Two ABBA-mad Australian scientists have named a new type of spider after the Swedish pop supergroup.

The arachnologists from Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, called the new type of orb-weaving spider Abba transversa.

Dr. Pedro Castanheira and Dr. Volker Framenau, said in a statement: "The band’s songs and subsequent musicals Mamma Mia! and Mamma Mia – Here We Go again!, provided hours of entertainment for us.”

The spider is found in coastal areas of New South Wales and Queensland.

It belongs to the orb-weaving Araneidae family and can be easily identified by its eye pattern, the abdomen normally overlapping the carapace, and complex genitalia.

The family currently has 188 genera and 3,119 species worldwide.

Abba transversa is tiny, at just 3-4 mm long, and is differentiated from other species within the family by the presence of two dark spots in the middle of the abdomen and by the thick hair on the first pair of legs of the males.

The description, published in the journal Evolutionary Systematics, comes after 15 years of scientific work, with the researchers looking at 12,000 records in Australian museums and overseas collections.

Dr. Castanheira: “Describing new taxa is vital for conservation management plans to assess biodiversity and protect forests areas across Australia.

“Currently, 80% of Australian spider species are unknown, and many of the described ones are misplaced in different genera, like Abba transversa used to be.”

ABBA were named after the initials of band members Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad and won the Eurovision Song Contest with Waterloo in 1974.

Following a string of hits in the 1970s and 1980s and failed marriages to each other they stopped recording.

However, they brought out a new album in 2021 and currently a show ABBA Voyage featuring them as avatars is running in London.