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Spiders threaten us on land, sea, and air!

ExpendableYouthExpendableYouth Posts: 2,105 ✭✭✭✭✭
edited July 2015 in Non Cigar Related
A sailing spider employs its silk anchor. Photo by Alex Hyde/Natural History Museum, London

LONDON, July 3 (UPI) -- Spider are impressively quick to colonize new territory, perhaps second only to winged species among arachnids and insects in their exploratory prowess.

New research suggests one key to their mobility is the ability to travel across water -- like a sailboat.

Researchers already knew spiders often employ a travel technique called ballooning, whereby the crawlers make their way to high ground and hurl out a mass of silk to catch the breeze. In doing so, the spiders quite literally relinquish their fate to the whims of the winds.

But what happens when the whims of the winds deposit the arachnids in the middle of the pond, lake, stream, river or ocean.

"Even Darwin took note of flying spiders that kept dropping on the Beagle miles away from the sea shore," Morito Hayashi, a researcher at the Natural History Museum, in London, noted in a recent press release. "But given that spiders are terrestrial, and that they do not have control over where they will travel when ballooning, how could evolution allow such risky behavior to be maintained?"

It turns out, spiders know how to sail.

In a new study, published this week in the journal Evolutionary Biology, researchers demonstrate how spiders use their legs to catch and manipulate the power of the wind, while employing their silk as an anchor.

"We've now found that spiders actively adopt postures that allow them to use the wind direction to control their journey on water," explained Hayashi, lead author of the new study. "They even drop silk and stop on the water surface when they want. This ability compensates for the risks of landing on water after the uncontrolled spider flights."

Researchers in England collected 325 adult spiders from small coastal islands. The haul consisted of specimens from 21 common species. Researchers observed the spiders sail across pools of water, using fans to replicate different wind conditions.

The scientists found the spiders to take on sometimes elaborate and acrobatic postures, raising and contorting their legs in different directions and angles to take advantage of the breeze. The releasing of silk allows the spider to slow their momentum, or potentially to latch on to larger floating objects.

"Being able to cope with water effectively 'joins the dots' as far as the spider is concerned," said study co-author Sara Goodacre, a researcher at the University of Nottingham. "It can move from one land mass to another, and potentially across huge spatial scales through the air. If landing on water poses no problem then in a week or two they could be a long way away from where they started."

Comments

  • ExpendableYouthExpendableYouth Posts: 2,105 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited July 2015
    Just when you thought you could swim across a channel of water to escape an attacking horde of spiders evolution spits in your face.  :#
    Post edited by ExpendableYouth on
  • EulogyEulogy Posts: 2,463 ✭✭✭✭✭
    There's just no escaping their 8 legs of death.
  • The3StogiesThe3Stogies Posts: 2,652 ✭✭✭✭
    That's amazing! I knew/watched them just dropping down a bit and use the breeze to travel from tree to tree to build some impressive webs, but that's incredible.  I've sat out back for an hour or 2 sometimes watching them do this.  Had one in my cellar that built quite a web over the window.  Used to toss different things in the web, tiny crumbs of whatever I was eating, fun to watch their reactions to various crumbs.  Hey, beats watching cable, lol..
  • skydiverDskydiverD Posts: 2,713 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Man, I wish I hadn't seen this. I'll never sleep well again. 

     :o 
    How do you like my profile pic Taborski?   @matkn293          
  • SecretSquirrelSecretSquirrel Posts: 864 ✭✭✭✭
    Crafty little **** lol
  • Dark_RoastDark_Roast Posts: 1,070 ✭✭✭
    I don't mind snakes, lizards, and a variety of vermin but when it comes to spiders..hell no! Don't know why but they creep me out. Bad enough they can crawl up walls and over ceilings but now its proven they have sailing skills. The only good spider in my opinion is a dead spider.
  • ExpendableYouthExpendableYouth Posts: 2,105 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I know right. It isn't enough they can crawl and climb on everything now they can apparently move across bodies of water to stalk us.
  • The3StogiesThe3Stogies Posts: 2,652 ✭✭✭✭
    Amazing how many spiders and crawly things are in the average household really.
  • raisindotraisindot Posts: 1,294 ✭✭✭
    After reading this, I was just thinking that a really great "Twilight Zone" or "American Horror Story" type episode would feature a woman driving down a highway with a huge spider crawling around the car. Not a demon spider or anything like that--just your normal, everyday large, hairy spider. Because of traffic or whatever, she couldn't slow down or get off the road, so the whole episode is about  her wondering where the hell this spider goes every day she slaps it away and then it emerges at just the wrong moment from all kinds of hidden places, crawling on her leg, dropping on her lap from behind the visor, etc. and she can't pull her car over to try to get rid of if it.  Such an episode would scare the bejesus out of me. 
  • skydiverDskydiverD Posts: 2,713 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited July 2015
    Lol. I would immediately pull over, traffic be dammed, and set my car ablaze. 

    If if that wasn't possible, I would unbuckle my seat belt and floor it. Let the impact kill me. Anything but a spider..... LOL 
    How do you like my profile pic Taborski?   @matkn293          
  • The3StogiesThe3Stogies Posts: 2,652 ✭✭✭✭
    Had a pretty good sized one in my pant leg one time.  Was troubleshooting a machine and felt something, thought it was just my leg hairs or something then realized it's moving up not down.  Felt a lump so I squeezed it, yuk, through my pants and down my leg.  At least I didn't see it.  Just came in from smoking figured it must have crawled up my leg out here.
  • Dark_RoastDark_Roast Posts: 1,070 ✭✭✭
    I don't know if any of you guys have the illusive "Brown Recluse" in your area, but stay the F away from that sombitch!
  • twistedstemtwistedstem Posts: 3,912 ✭✭✭✭✭

    image
    no matter where you go, there you are.

  • twistedstemtwistedstem Posts: 3,912 ✭✭✭✭✭

    no matter where you go, there you are.

  • Dark_RoastDark_Roast Posts: 1,070 ✭✭✭
    If spiders were ever to grow to that size all species on earth would be annialated. When they sail they would kill Great White Sharks. On land they would kill the King Of The Jungle! And us humans would wish "Raid" did the job! 
  • sinatramansinatraman Posts: 4
    they still are not as tough as a sharknado!  spiders eat flies. flies are disgusting therefore spiders are our friends.  Now the real enemy are those cockroaches.
  • RhamlinRhamlin Posts: 8,908 ✭✭✭✭✭
  • jlmartajlmarta Posts: 7,881 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Rhamlin said:

    Whatcha got there, Ricky??
  • Dark_RoastDark_Roast Posts: 1,070 ✭✭✭
    A traveling companion? Or stowaway?
  • CvilleECvilleE Posts: 1,594 ✭✭✭
    jlmarta said:
    Rhamlin said:

    Whatcha got there, Ricky??
    I hope that's not real!
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