Biologists discover skydiving spiders in South American forests
Biologists discover skydiving spiders in South American forests
By Robert Sanders | August 18, 2015
Arachnophobes fearful of spiders jumping, creeping or falling into their beds now have something new to worry about. Some spiders might also glide in through the window.
A group of biologists working in Panama and Peru have discovered a type of nocturnal hunting spider, about two inches across, that is able to steer while falling, much like a wingsuit flyer, in order to return to the tree from which it fell.
The spider joins a small number of non-flying insects – ants, bristletails and some insect larvae – known to have the ability to maneuver while falling instead of dropping like a rock, according to Robert Dudley, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of the authors of a paper about the spider appearing this week in the journal Interface of the Royal Society.
“My guess is that many animals living in the trees are good at aerial gliding, from snakes and lizards to ants and now spiders,” Dudley said. “If a predator comes along, it frees the animal to jump if it has a time-tested way of gliding to the nearest tree rather than landing in the understory or in a stream.”
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This spider from the genus Selenops is about two inches across and hunts in the
tree canopy at night for its prey. Stephen Yanoviak photo, Univ. of Kentucky.
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