The Amazing Spider

choi

Sindya N Bhanoo, The Amazing Spider (No Man Required). New York Times, May 6, 2014 (video clip).
www.nytimes.com/2014/05/06/scien ... onishing-moves.html
(Cebrennus rechenbergi, a spider newly discovered in the Moroccan Sahara)

Quote:

"Peter Jäger, a taxonomist at the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, who identified the spider, has nicknamed it the flic-flac for the maneuver its leap resembles. * * * Although the newly discovered spider usually does its flips forward, it can do a back flip as well, Dr Jäger said, justifying its nickname, a gymnastics term for a back handspring."

Note:
(a) flicflac (n; French, of imitative origin): "a brushing movement of the foot used in ballet as a connecting step"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flicflac

is the same as
(b) handspring (gymnastics)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handspring_(gymnastics)

, both of which can be forward or backward.