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Freaky photos of giant spiders on social media may have revealed dozens of new species.

鈥淲hen people see an animal that they think is frightening or dangerous, the most common response is to take a photo and post it to social media,鈥� says , previously at the University of Pretoria in South Africa and now at Harper Adams University, UK.

In 2013, Campbell got involved with some 鈥渕assive spider nerds鈥�, who drove around at night watching for spiders on the road and 鈥渢ickling鈥� tarantulas out of their burrows with blades of grass. 鈥淚 sort of got drawn into that excitement and enthusiasm,鈥� she says.

They focused on , a subfamily of found in eastern and southern Africa. About 56 species are known, but Campbell says much remains unknown.

To find out more, they built the . They combed Facebook, online forums and other social media sites for photos and information about baboon spiders. People also send in photos of spiders they find and ask questions 鈥� mostly 鈥渋s it poisonous?鈥� and 鈥渨hat do I do?鈥�

Spiders on Facebook

The data shows that many known species range more widely than thought, and that some species that were thought to spend all their time in their burrows actually wander.

What鈥檚 more, Campbell says the Atlas may have identified 20 to 30 new species. This needs to be confirmed, but some spiders in the Atlas have previously-unseen patterns, sizes or colours. One spider in Mozambique was bright purple, which was unknown in African tarantulas. Another had a new shape of horn on its back that had not been seen before.

Crowd-sourcing is invaluable, says at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California. 鈥淭he conventional field study approach won鈥檛 be able to generate data of such scale in this short period of time.鈥�

Baboon spiders are protected in South Africa. But they are threatened by the pet trade, because of their complex patterns and the bright colours of species like . Campbell says clarifying where they live will help conservationists protect them.