Samoa is home to one of the world's smallest spiders which is only visible under a magnifying glass.

In the talks of conservation, Samoa is also best known as the home of the tooth-billed pigeon, the Samoa dodo or most commonly known as the Manumea.

This endangered bird also shares its home with a peculiar animal not commonly spoken about or almost never seen.

Samoa is home to the worlds or if not, one of the world’s smallest spiders, the Patu Marplesi or the ‘Samoan Moss Spider’.

Patu Marplesi is a species of small spiders, endemic to Samoa. It is considered one of the smallest spiders in the world, as male legspan is 0.46 mm second to the Patu Digua measuring only 0.43mm, primarily found in Ivory Coast West Africa.

Due to its tiny size, it can only be identified under a magnifying glass.

According to Mark Schmaedick, an entomologist from the American Samoa Community College, the only actual observation of Patu Marplesi is the collection of an adult male from moss in Malololelei in 1956.

“The body length given in this description is 0.43 mm. (Carapace length of 0.22 mm plus abdomen length of 0.21 mm.) This is slightly longer than the 0.37 mm body length recorded for male Patu Digua from Colombia (Forster and Platnick 1977),” he said

“Body length can vary among individuals of a species, so if one were able to measure many adult males of both species, there may be overlap in the ranges of body lengths. In any case, it's probably better to say that Patu Marplesi is among the world's smallest spiders, though perhaps not the smallest as stated widely online,”

“If the Patu Marplesi is similar to others in the genus Patu, then it probably makes small, fine-meshed, horizontal orb webs in leaf litter, moss, and similar habitats. Because of their small size and the types of habitats they live in, not much is known about spiders in this genus.” Said Mr. Schmaedick

He also added that Samoa has one other endemic Patu that is described, Patu Samoensis (Marples 1951), and at least one more that is undescribed (Forster 1959).

According to the Samoa Conservation Society, the Patu Marplesi is more likely to be seen in Afiomalu.