Shelly Wysocki, age 12, of Lansing, Michigan, for her question:
Is there really a flying spider?
Many spiders certainly travel up and away through the air. Some reach the clouds and some journey hundreds of miles aloft, often far out over the ocean. These aerial acrobatics are most common in the spring and fall when the young generation of spiders is ready to spread out into wider territory. If you happen to be in the woods or meadows when a migration is ready for launching, the feathery little spiders will strike you from all directions.
People who strive to be precise insist that spiders do not fly. However, this could be a rather stuffy point of view. True, no spider flies like a bird on flapping wings. But neither does an airplane. And considering their size, certain spiders fly just as successfully as a plane. They have been found sailing along at altitudes of 10,000 feet and high above the ocean at least 200 miles from land. If this isn't flying, then goodness knows who made all those little green apples.
Spiders use their miraculous silk to fly through the air. There are about 40,000 species of these wondrous little creatures and all but a few of them spin gossamer silk, often invisibly fine threads no wider that one millionth part of an inch. These filmy threads can stretch one fifth of their length without breaking and their tensile strength equals that of fine steel. Lighter than the lightest feathers, they are wafted by the soft breezes, carrying the spiders up and away through the air.
The launching begins when a spider spins a fine gossamer towline, letting it float freely in the air. If the line gets tangled or stuck on a nearby twig, she uses it as a suspension bridge and walks across to view her spidery world from a new location. If her towline wafts aloft, she holds onto it until the right moment to launch herself into the air. Then off she drifts, clinging to her parachute while the breezes waft her who knows where.
Most adult spiders take these serial trips once in a while. But baby spiderlings depend on this mode of travel to establish themselves in new locations. Large broods of these busy creatures hatch from silken cocoons very hungry and all set to cope with the world. There may be a dozen or several hundred spiderlings in each brood and perhaps hundreds of broods hatching in the neighborhood at about the same time. The home territory is very crowded but the problem is solved when the youth generation spins those do it yourself parachutes and disperses to new locations.
These airborne trips are somewhat risky and certainly the spiders who get wafted over the ocean are not likely to land in safe locations. But spiders are very adjustable creatures, capable of making a living in deserts and on high mountains, in warm and cool climates, damp or dry. If there are insects around, spiders can find food and, of course, many, many places are well populated with insects.