Scientists Name New Colombian Spider Species After Pink Floyd

A tiny spider clinging to the walls of parking lots and buildings in Colombia just earned one of the most rock-and-roll names in science history, and it may be quietly working against some of the most annoying insects in urban life.

An international research team has officially described a new species from urban areas of Tolima, Colombia, naming it Pikelinia floydmuraria after the legendary rock band Pink Floyd and their 1979 album The Wall. The name is a mashup: “Floyd” honors the band, while “muraria” comes from the Latin word for wall, a fitting nod to where these spiders actually live.

What makes the discovery, published in Zoosystematics and Evolution, more than a clever naming story is what researchers found in the spiders’ webs. An analysis of prey remains revealed a diet heavy with flies, ants, and beetles, including fly groups known to contain disease-spreading species. In cities where pest insects are a constant nuisance, these wall-dwelling spiders may be helping to reduce their numbers in a small but tangible way.

A Pink Floyd Spider Built for City Life

P. floydmuraria belongs to a family of spiders commonly called crevice weavers, several of which are known to live in and around human homes across the Americas and Mediterranean. Before this discovery, only one other species from this particular group had ever been recorded in Colombia. Every specimen found during the study turned up in human-modified environments. None were found in undisturbed natural settings.

Researchers found these spiders most densely concentrated on walls near streetlights in the city of Ibagué, where counts reached 20 to 30 individuals per square meter when juveniles were included. That clustering near lights is no accident. Artificial lighting draws in flying insects, and these spiders seem to capitalize on the resulting concentration of prey by setting up their webs nearby.

What the Pink Floyd Spider Eats

To determine prey preferences, the team collected web remains from adult female spiders across two populations: one in Ibagué and another in Armenia, in the Quindío department. From the Ibagué group, researchers gathered 103 prey items from 15 adult females. From the Armenia group, they collected 66 items from five adult females.

Ants, bees, and wasps together accounted for roughly 35% of prey across both populations, making that group the most consumed. Flies and beetles followed close behind, with all other insects and small creatures collectively making up less than 10% of the diet.

One of the more surprising findings involved raw predatory ambition. In the Ibagué population, spiders were documented taking down ants up to six times the size of their own front body section, what scientists described as “adaptive specialization for consuming these well-defended prey.” The Armenia population tended to eat prey closer to its own size, suggesting different populations develop different hunting habits depending on local conditions.

Among the flies collected from the webs, researchers identified remains from groups that include common houseflies and other flies known to include disease-carrying species. Exact counts by fly type weren’t recorded, but the pattern echoes findings from other city-dwelling spiders studied in the same Colombian region.

A Mysterious Cousin and an Expanding Map

Beyond the new species itself, the study filled a long-standing gap in the scientific record. Researchers provided the first-ever description and illustration of internal female anatomy for Pikelinia fasciata, a related species found only in the Galápagos Islands of Ecuador, a detail explicitly noted as missing from scientific literature since 1997. Both species share nearly identical male mating structures and similar leg features, hinting at a close relationship despite the vast geographic distance. Whether that resemblance reflects shared ancestry or parallel evolution remains unresolved, and DNA analysis would be needed to settle it, along with the separate question of whether P. floydmuraria is native to Colombia or arrived there more recently.

Three additional unidentified populations of the same spider group also turned up in other Colombian departments during the study, suggesting the country’s spider diversity is considerably underestimated. Only 20 species of this group are currently recognized across all of South America, so even a few new confirmations could meaningfully shift what scientists know about them.

A spider barely a few millimeters long, P. floydmuraria takes down prey many times its size, feeds on insects that make city life less comfortable, and now carries the name of one of rock’s most iconic albums. Ironically, most people would walk right past one on a parking lot wall without a second glance.

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