Eight legs and two faces! Horrifying jumping spider has sinister skull pattern on its back

By Mikey Jones

This jumping spider looks particularly petrifying with a skull-like design on its back.

Photographer Elaine de Bruin came across this unique patterned bug in her back garden in Rustenburg, South Africa.

PIC BY Elaine de Bruin / CATERS NEWS

And the design looks just like the logo worn by Marvel Comics vigilante the Punisher, who fights the criminal underworld.

Despite the spider’s blatant dark marking on its back, Elaine says that it was not visible when she spent 30 minutes taking photographs of the spider.

It wasn’t until she downloaded the photographs on to her computer that she noticed the horrifying marking on the jumping spider.

Elaine, 30, said: “The spider is very tiny, so with the naked eye the skull on the spiders head is not visible.

“It was only when I was downloading and viewing the photos on the computer that I could actually see the skull.

PIC BY Elaine de Bruin / CATERS NEWS

“It was amazing to see the skull and it made me realise just how wonderful nature is – and I feel very lucky for capturing this unique moment.

“It was a female thyene natalii jumping spider and she is pregnant, but she’s only tine – approximately one centimetre in size!

“I spent around 30 minutes with the spider whilst it was busy feeding on a fly and I had to take these photos in a very awkward position because the spider was sitting underneath a leaf, hanging upside down with a fly.”