Young spiders that have recently hatched spin the webs in an attempt to discover new lands — not to mention escape the dangers of their cannibalistic siblings.
Rick Grantham, an entomologist at OSU, said the young spiders, known as “spiderlings,” hatch from the egg and once their exoskeleton has formed and their silk glands has formed, they can start spinning.
“They essentially stick their butts in the air and squirt out liquid silk,” Grantham said. “It hardens once it hits the air. The bigger the spider, the longer and more silk they have to spin because they have more weight to lift off the ground.”
The spiderlings crawl to a tall object, which for a tiny spider may be a bush or the railing found around campus and begin spinning their webs.
The process is called “ballooning” and is the primary dispersal mechanism for spiderlings.
Once in the air, the flight can take spiderlings high into the atmosphere. Ballooning spiders have been caught on airplanes and found hundreds of miles from their place of origin, according to the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies.
Many of the spiderlings don’t make it and end up in water or in a predator’s belly but enough make it to land where they start their lives in new places, according to the center.
Grantham said this year there seems to be more web floating around than usual.
Spiderlings ballooning happens every year, especially in the fall.
This year’s heavy rainfall is probably to blame for the increased webs.
Although the web flying around may have a spiderling on it, people shouldn’t panic when a bit of web lands on them, Grantham said.
“They won’t bite,” Grantham said. “They’re too small. They’re not venomous even though all spiders are venomous to a certain degree.”
Plus, Grantham added, “you’re not in their food chain.”
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Great story Jackie. I really learned something when I read this. :)