Ballooning spider mystery solved, and that's a good thing
News agency
Monday, July 23, 2018, 7:50 PM - Up, up, and away.
An adult crab spider takes flight, having made a sheet-like sail from silk fibres to catch the breeze.
The practice of 'ballooning' has been known about since the 17th Century, but little understood.
Technical University of Berlin scientists set out to solve the mystery.
(RELATED: Here's why you shouldn't kill spiders)
They placed adult spiders on a circular platform inside a local park and a laboratory wind tunnel.
The arachnids first anchored themselves to the platform before lifting at least one leg to test the wind's ferocity.
If it wasn't too blustery, they'd leap into the air, cutting their barely visible fibres loose.
It's the first study to show that spiders carefully evaluate wind conditions before launching skywards.
Scientists think their findings could help engineers create balloon structures for use in tornado and hurricane research.
