Nosferatu spider

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to navigation Jump to search

English[edit]

A Nosferatu spider, showing the supposedly vampiric markings.

Etymology[edit]

Calque of German Nosferatu-Spinne. Named for the resemblance of its markings to the vampire Count Orlok from the 1922 movie Nosferatu.

Noun[edit]

Nosferatu spider (plural Nosferatu spiders)

  1. Zoropsis spinimana, a relatively large hunting spider originally from southern Europe.
    • 2022 December 17, “Alien spiders in Switzerland – how worried should we be?”, in SWI swissinfo.ch‎[1]:
      This autumn media reports and social media posts about the rapid spread of so-called Nosferatu spiders have caused unease throughout Switzerland.
    • 2023 September 23, “Scan of the month September – It’s spider season”, in Nikon‎[2]:
      This month, Nikon Metrology’s Thomas Dreisbusch, Application Engineer X-ray & CT, has scanned a spider whose name alone causes fear and terror: the Nosferatu spider (Zoropsis spinimana).

Further reading[edit]

Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Nosferatu_spider&oldid=78879424"