A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, flat regions covered with wind-swept sand or dunes, with little or no vegetation, are called ergs or sand seas. Dunes occur in different shapes and sizes, but most kinds of dunes are longer on the stoss (upflow) side, where the sand is pushed up the dune, and have a shorter slip face in the lee side. The valley or trough between dunes is called a dune slack.
The geography of Israel is very diverse, with desert conditions in the south, and snow-capped mountains in the north. Israel is located at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea in West Asia. It is bounded to the north by Lebanon, the northeast by Syria, the east by Jordan and the West Bank, and to the southwest by Egypt. To the west of Israel is the Mediterranean Sea, which makes up the majority of Israel's 273 km (170 mi) coastline, and the Gaza Strip. Israel has a small coastline on the Red Sea in the south.
The Arabian Desert is a vast desert wilderness in West Asia that occupies almost the entire Arabian Peninsula with an area of 2,330,000 square kilometers (900,000 sq mi). It stretches from Yemen to the Persian Gulf and Oman to Jordan and Iraq. It is the fifth largest desert in the world and the largest in Asia. At its center is Ar-Rub' al-Khali, one of the largest continuous bodies of sand in the world. It is an extension of the Sahara Desert.
Huntsman spiders, members of the family Sparassidae, are known by this name because of their speed and mode of hunting. They are also called giant crab spiders because of their size and appearance. Larger species sometimes are referred to as wood spiders, because of their preference for woody places. In southern Africa the genus Palystes are known as rain spiders or lizard-eating spiders. Commonly, they are confused with baboon spiders from the Mygalomorphae infraorder, which are not closely related.
The Arabah/Araba or Aravah/Arava is a loosely defined geographic area in the Negev Desert, south of the Dead Sea basin, which forms part of the border between Israel to the west and Jordan to the east.
White Sands National Park is an American national park located in the state of New Mexico and completely surrounded by the White Sands Missile Range. The park covers 145,762 acres in the Tularosa Basin, including the southern 41% of a 275 sq mi (710 km2) field of white sand dunes composed of gypsum crystals. This gypsum dunefield is the largest of its kind on Earth, with a depth of about 30 feet (9.1 m), dunes as tall as 60 feet (18 m), and about 4.5 billion short tons of gypsum sand.
Leucorchestris arenicola, commonly called the dancing white lady spider, is a huntsman spider in the family Sparassidae and genus Leucorchestris. It is commonly found in the Namib desert of Namibia. It is often mistaken with the similarly named Carparachne aureoflava, or more commonly known as the wheel spider from the same location. L. arenicola relies on seismic vibrations, called drumming, for communication. It taps its foremost legs on the sand to send messages to other white lady spiders. Male L. arenicola will travel over 50 m in one night searching for a mate. If they find a mate, they must be extremely careful, for drumming the wrong message can be deadly. One of the major features that characterizes its nocturnal behavior is its specialized vision, using eight eyes in different orientations to capture a panoramic view of the surroundings. L. arenicola spiders use temporal summation in order to be able to see dim lighting during night-time wanderings. The species was first described by Reginald Frederick Lawrence in 1962, who described all the species in the genus Leucorchestris.
The Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area is located on the Oregon Coast, stretching approximately 40 miles (64 km) north of the Coos River in North Bend to the Siuslaw River in Florence, and adjoining Honeyman State Park on the west. It is part of Siuslaw National Forest and is administered by the United States Forest Service.
Deliblato Sands is a large sand area covering around 300 km2 (120 sq mi) of ground in Vojvodina province, Serbia. It is located in southern Banat, situated between the river Danube and the southwestern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains. The sands are named after the village of Deliblato, in the municipality of Kovin. Its main masses are elliptical shaped hills with steppe grassland plains and steppe forests.
Ashdod Sand Dune is a psammosere ecosystem close to the city of Ashdod on the Israeli Coastal Plain near the Mediterranean sea. It is south of Tel Aviv.
Kurkar is the term used in Arabic and modern Hebrew for the rock type of which lithified sea sand dunes consist. The equivalent term used in Lebanon is ramleh.
The giant huntsman spider is a species of the huntsman spider family Sparassidae found in Laos. It is considered the world's largest spider by leg span, which can reach up to 30 cm (1 ft).
The Sands of Samar, also called the Samar sands or Samar sand dunes, are an expanse of sand dunes in the Arava region of southern Israel. Once encompassing an area of seven square kilometers, agricultural development and sand mining have reduced the sands to 2.3 square kilometers. In recent years environmentalists and local residents have campaigned to preserve what remains of the dunes.
Micrommata ligurina is a species of huntsman spider. It was first described by Carl Ludwig Koch in 1845.
Sinopoda scurion is a species of huntsman spider discovered in 2012 in a Laotian cave. It has a leg span of about 6 centimetres (2.4 in) and a body span of about 12 millimetres (0.47 in). It is the first recorded huntsman spider to lack eyes. Due to its dark cave habitat, it has no requirement of vision for hunting.
Cebrennus rechenbergi, also known as the Moroccan flic-flac spider and cartwheeling spider, is a species of huntsman spider indigenous to the sand dunes of the Erg Chebbi desert in Morocco. If provoked or threatened it can escape by doubling its normal walking speed using forward or backward flips similar to acrobatic flic-flac movements used by gymnasts. C. rechenbergi is the only spider known to use this unique form of rolling locomotion. The discovery of the Moroccan flic-flac spider has influenced biomimetic robot research, resulting in the development of an experimental robot based on the spider's motion.
Spariolenus is a genus of Asian huntsman spiders that was first described by Eugène Louis Simon in 1880. They are found in the Middle East reaching 15-16cm.
Caayguara is a genus of Brazilian huntsman spiders that was first described by C. A. Rheims in 2010.
Latrodectus umbukwane, commonly known as the Phinda button spider, is a species of the spider in the genus Latrodectus described in 2019, named after the Phinda Private Game Reserve where research specimens were collected. As of 2019, it is known only from critically endangered sand forest environments in northern Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is believed to be the largest member of its genus.
Extraordinarius is a genus of South American huntsman spiders. It was first described by C. A. Rheims in 2019, and it has only been found in Brazil.
