The scuba-diving spider builds air chambers from silk, allowing it to adapt to underwater life and hide in barnacle shells and corals along the Great Barrier Reef.

Discovered by Queensland Museum’s Dr Barbara Baehr and Dr Robert Raven, the species was named after legendary artist Bob Marley for its “adventurous and resilient spirit”.

"Desis bobmarleyi is a small spider with a six-millimetre-long body and long hair like his namesake,” Dr Baehr said.

“It uses this long hair on its legs and abdomen to create an air bubble around its middle that enables it to breathe and survive between the high and low tide zones.

“During high tide these extremely rare and unusual animals hide in the air chambers, but during low tide they are vagrant hunters found on corals, barnacles or debris.

“It was this behaviour that inspired us to name this new intertidal species in honour of Bob Marley’s hit song High Tide or Low Tide, which played during our field research in Queensland’s Port Douglas.”

On Monday, the World Register of Marine Species, managed by 300 scientists from around the world, listed the furry species among the top 10 most remarkable species discovered in 2017.

Among the other top 10 species was the Mariana snailfish of Micronesia, the deepest fish collected off the ocean floor which can live under water pressure similar to an elephant standing on your thumb.

Since the register was established a decade ago, the number of species listed has doubled from 120,000 to 242,500 to provide an authoritative and comprehensive list of names of marine organisms, including information on synonymy.

Once a new species has been published in a scientific journal, the register's taxonomic editor responsible for that species group enters the information online and makes it openly available to the public.