Of all the wonderful creatures I saw in Costa Rica, this Devil Horned spider was perhaps the strangest and, for me, the most memorable. Don’t be fooled by the size of it in this shot – it was small, and was spotted by the practised eyes of our guide. It would have been so easy to miss it and pass it by.

At first I couldn’t work out why there were two horns in view and thought it was something the spider had caught. I was expecting to see a roundish spider body,  not an angular one complete with horns, but yes, this is exactly what it was. Small, bright yellow and weirdly amazing.

This spider spins a web without a centre. The middle of the web is open and the large web is constructed around an empty space. The spider can hide on either side of the web and suddenly appear through the empty hole as soon as some hapless insect blunders into it.

Isn’t nature amazing?!