This is an excellent superpower!
#spiders #spiderballooning #electricalfields
Originally shared by Adafruit Industries
Spiders Can Fly Hundreds of Miles Using Electricity #Science #Spiders @TheAtlantic
https://blog.adafruit.com/2018/12/31/spiders-can-fly-hundreds-of-miles-using-electricity-science-spiders-theatlantic/
Via Ed Yong for The Atlantic
On October 31, 1832, Charles Darwin walked onto the deck of the HMS Beagle and realized that the ship had been boarded by thousands of intruders. Tiny red spiders, each a millimeter wide, were everywhere. The ship was 60 miles offshore, so the creatures must have floated over from the Argentinian mainland. “All the ropes were coated and fringed with gossamer web,” Darwin wrote.
Spiders have no wings, but they can take to the air nonetheless. They’ll climb to an exposed point, raise their abdomens to the sky, extrude strands of silk, and float away. This behavior is called ballooning. It might carry spiders away from predators and competitors, or toward new lands with abundant resources. But whatever the reason for it, it’s clearly an effective means of travel. Spiders have been found two-and-a-half miles up in the air, and 1,000 miles out to sea.
See more!
https://blog.adafruit.com/2018/12/31/spiders-can-fly-hundreds-of-miles-using-electricity-science-spiders-theatlantic/
https://blog.adafruit.com/2018/12/31/spiders-can-fly-hundreds-of-miles-using-electricity-science-spiders-theatlantic/
