I always considered spiders to be just so...cool π
And just when I thought they can't get any cooler today I learnt something really fascinating about them!
You may know or may have even witnessed a spider flying using a thread of silk and some help from the nearby air currents. This behavior is called ballooning (or kiting) but it turns out that sometimes air currents aren't only what's involved.
According to a 2018 study, electric fields in the atmosphere are enough by themselves to cause a lift off, even in windless conditions!
The prevailing view is that drag forces from light wind allow spiders to become airborne, yet ballooning mechanisms are not fully explained by current aerodynamic models
Altogether, the evidence gathered reveals an electric driving force that is sufficient for ballooning.
source
While fascinating, this behavior is not really "flying" as the spiders rely on external forces. Much like plankton doesn't swim.
Still this unique way of locomotion can help them to cover long distances, sometimes even hundreds of kilometers.
To give you an idea, flying spiders have been reported to land in atmospheric data balloons at five kilometres altitude and ships mid-ocean π²
Of course ballooning can turn out to be a nasty experience. The skies are full of birds that love to snack on spiders and there's always the risk of landing in unfavorable environments.
Here are a couple of videos showing this amazing behavior in action
And here's a link to Wikipedia if you prefer to do some reading! And here's a link to the paper that first reported the use of electrical fields in spider ballooning.
Nature can be just so fucking cool ^_^
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