r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/archubbuck • 8d ago

Video A spider “ballooning”

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22.0k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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4.2k

u/skinnergy 8d ago

Spiders have crossed oceans in this way.

Many sailors have reported spiders being caught in their ship's sails over 1,000 miles (1,600 km)[18] from land (Heimer 1988). They have even been detected in atmospheric data balloons collecting air samples at slightly less than 5 kilometers (16,000 ft) above sea level.[19] Evidently, ballooning is the most common way for spiders to invade isolated islands and mountaintops.[18][20] Spiderlings are known to survive without food while travelling in air currents of jet streams for 25 days or longer.[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballooning_(spider)

2.2k

u/Subject_Candle_8568 8d ago

TIL spiders are pilots

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u/LectroRoot 8d ago

Paratroopers dropping down to invade new territory.

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u/Omen46 8d ago

Can they just drop from that high tho? Or do they lower themselves

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u/bradeena 7d ago

They can drop from any height without risk. They're small enough that their terminal velocity is only 2-3 kph.

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u/GoombyGoomby 7d ago

These spiders can. Larger spiders like wolf spiders or tarantulas can burst and die from a drop of merely a few feet.

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u/bradeena 7d ago

I don't think those ones can balloon though, which I guess is a good thing for them!

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u/friendlyharrys 7d ago

And us

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u/bradeena 7d ago

Jesus christ

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u/Koffeeboy 7d ago

Tarantula hail, coming to a nightmare near you.

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u/LectroRoot 7d ago

I'm pretty sure Jesus has a Teflon coating or something that repels spiders. If he doesn't then I am certain he can summon a spider force field around himself using his voodoo powers. Pretty sure there is something about it in that comic book his Dad wrote.

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u/Smashmundo 7d ago

Yea lmao. Imagine a fat tarantula flying through the air hahahahaha

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u/Nucklesix 7d ago

If those could Ballon, we'd need to nuke Australia from otbit... just to save.

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u/Omen46 7d ago

Insane

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u/TheDarkNerd 7d ago

I've never seen kph used for km/h, but it feels slightly cursed.

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u/baumpop 7d ago

its actually per hectare

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u/LiveShowOneNightOnly 7d ago

kilograms per hectare, right? Trying to follow this

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u/Y_I_Otto 7d ago

300 hectares on a single tank of kerosene

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u/sector-0-0-1 7d ago

My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!

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u/Turtlepaste17 7d ago

Put it in H!

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u/Shaeress 7d ago edited 7d ago

Most small arthropods like this are basically immune to fall damage. They're really light so they fall slowly without much force, and have a hard shell covering their entire body that gives good protection against such impacts (like a fly bashing its head into a window 800 times in a row is usually fine besides being very tired).

Presumably they can just cut the wire and fall down to the ground without much issue. The problem is steering cause they definitely can't do much of that and while a small spider might be immune to fall damage, they are not immune to drowning in a puddle and they're definitely not immune to being eaten by a fish or a bird.

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u/HexUaV 7d ago

Spiders can actually survive for many hours under water and some even multiple days, especially hairy ones because they trap air in their hairs

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u/RollingMeteors 7d ago

>Spiders can actually survive for many hours under water and some even multiple days, especially hairy ones because they trap air in their hairs

You thought you were crafty eating dinner from your beard hair while it's inhaling air from the hair growing out of it its bones.

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u/Einar_47 7d ago

You could drop a squirrel from the edge of space and he'd walk it off the same as falling from a 40 foot branch, small things have lower terminal velocity and less mass so they tank falls better.

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u/Bob_A_Ganoosh 7d ago

As a child I witnessed a squirrel belly flop from the top of a utility pole on to asphalt and carry on as if nothing happened. I was amazed.

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u/Einar_47 7d ago

I've seen them leap from the top of a third floor townhouse, they're on my short list for things to be reincarnated as if presented the choice. Life as a squirrel wouldn't be a long one, but it'd be fun one.

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u/xteve 7d ago

I watched a squirrel fall from a big tree onto a slanted metal shed roof, slide off that, and hit the ground running. I also saw a squirrel try to walk down the side of a brick building and get stuck. I still don't know what happened to that one.

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u/Silver-Bread4668 7d ago

Squirrels have as many lives as they think they can get away with.

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u/farfly7 7d ago

They didn't come with a stock exoskeleton for nothing

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u/talltime 7d ago

If they consume their silk and shorten their sail one would think they’d be able to control their descent.

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u/CharityAggravating69 8d ago

This is your captain speaking, please remain seated as we enter a jet stream. Also if the person in row 4 could stop trying to eat the flight attendant, that'd be great

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u/re003 7d ago

Amaze amaze amaze

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u/DynamiteWitLaserBeam 7d ago

Fist my bump.

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u/metallosherp 8d ago

"Balloon" pilot. Let's not get carried away with the broader term here.

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u/Wittyngritty 8d ago

Don't give them anymore ideas please

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u/_BlackDove 8d ago

This is how you get Children of Time.

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u/CMDR_BitMedler 8d ago

This is literally one of my favorite spider facts... dozens to hundreds of spiders are flying above you during peak migration season.

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u/bimm3r36 8d ago

This is now my least favorite spider fact

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u/HighOnTums 7d ago

This is now my spider fact. Thank you, comrade. 😄

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u/bimm3r36 7d ago

Our spider fact

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u/tryyeezus 7d ago

It's bad enough having to 'ninja reject' my way through the forest but now I gotta do it in the open fields and parking lots too? 

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u/BobTheFettt 8d ago

Okay well now I'm definitely never going outside again

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u/runnysyrup 7d ago

what a terrible day to be literate

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u/Nos9684 7d ago

And to think they are nice enough to fly high enough to not get in the way of most things near the ground. Spiders sure can be considerate. Not Spider Man though. He's kind of an ass.

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u/Ok_Fly2518 7d ago

I hate this

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u/EarlyXplorerStuds209 8d ago

Thats truly so interesting. TIL.

Do they straight up just, “fly” when the airstream pick them up with their webs acting as some kind of gliding surface?

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u/DontTellHimPike 8d ago

One theory is the silk has a negative charge which repels them from the negative charges on the ground and towards positive charges in the atmosphere, which they use in combination with wind and thermal currents.

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u/EarlyXplorerStuds209 8d ago

Thats sounds sick af. And kinda fun too.

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u/Astrosomnia 7d ago

What the fuck.

That's like... Evolution science. Basically magic.

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u/CharityAggravating69 8d ago

Imagine being a spider with a fear of heights and a gust of wind just decides your fate

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u/Beard_o_Bees 7d ago

Holy hell.. evolution is an amazing process.

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u/MastodonsBetter 7d ago

Type of shit you can pull off when you weight less than a gram

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u/Mr_Mojo_Risin_83 7d ago

They’ve been observed doing it in controlled conditions with no wind. They’re using electromagnetic waves. Spiders have some of the most intricate and complicated little life cycles.

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u/jr_randolph 8d ago

Used to work in the Sears Tower and now this explains why I’d see a spider out on the window up on the 60th floor haha

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u/Daffodil_Peony_Rose 7d ago

Oooooooooooooh I remember seeing spiders stuck to the windows on the 18th floor of by office building thinking “wow, those guys sure can climb”, but this makes way more sense.

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u/MidwesternLikeOpe 7d ago

Tried to save money by going to another tall building in Chicago (the room with the 360 degree view). I paid more than I would have in the Skydeck. But I was amazed by all the spiders on the sill tens of stories high. I thought they crawled the whole way too. I'm both amazed and horrified by the truth.

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u/pb-straws 8d ago

It is certainly faster than walking. I was working on venom evolution in the oldest extant (living) group of spiders. It took them roughly 350 million years to walk from modern day France to SE Asia. Webby spiders that balloon have lots of different types of silk glands, but these spiders only produce silk for reproductive purposes (egg sac and sperm web). I spent quite a lot of time digging them out of caves only to find that did not have venom glands. It was a quick end to my venom study.

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u/LectroRoot 8d ago

I want to believe it's making a long sqeeky fart as it's letting out strands butt rope.

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u/SoreLoserOfDumbtown 8d ago

I was thinking more like nnnnnnnnnggggghhhhhhhh ahhhhh, but each to their own.

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u/pprivate100 8d ago

Why spiders are collecting data samples though?

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u/Superichiruki 8d ago

They have to add this power to Spiderman

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u/Ok_Woodpecker_2622 7d ago

Pretty sure this is what his webs connect, to when they aren’t connecting to anything obvious.

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u/zmormon 8d ago

Is this what Spiderman does when his webs don't hit buildings?

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u/BVoLatte 8d ago

Obviously another advantage to organic web shooters

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u/Semanticss 7d ago

I have pet jumping spiders, and they can easily go a month or more without food once they're mature.

Bugs are crazy. I had a meal worm that sat in my spider's feeding dish for WEEKS, somehow managed to survive without food or water, and even managed to eventually pupate.

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u/fattmarrell 7d ago

So just yesterday after 40 years of my life some Redditor crashed the whole dark reality of "why did the chicken cross the road" and now you guys are one upping that spiders fly across oceans

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u/Alex_AU_gt 7d ago

Damn... interesting indeed

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u/ciao-adios 8d ago

spider home coming

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u/hyrulepirate Interested 8d ago

Spider: Far From Home

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u/CreepyConstable 8d ago

Spider: Fly From Home

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u/Axel_Clint 7d ago

Spider: Beyond home

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u/TDStarchild 7d ago

Spider: Brand New Home

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u/Mister_Moony 7d ago

Spider: Misses the Old Country

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u/Particular-Jaguar-65 7d ago

Balloon: Spidering

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u/RobotechRicky 7d ago

No Country For Old Spiders

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u/BlackIris_27 7d ago

Spider: Leave me Alone

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u/davgonza 7d ago

Spider: No Way Home

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u/WrongdoerEmotional47 7d ago

Spider home alone

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u/JonsalatDeNung 8d ago

r/PraiseTheCameraMan

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u/Narpity 8d ago

Seriously the panning, the zoom work. The 'Oh shit!' as it starts coming at him. No notes.

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u/relevantelephant00 8d ago

And the contagious giggles at the end.

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u/mydeadbody 7d ago

Daggum.

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u/Greta-Elephant5041 7d ago

That shuffling and wild camera and giggling actually gave me the heebie-jeebies like the spider was about to land on me :p

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u/EffluviaJane 7d ago

I love his accent, too.

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u/TruamaTeam 7d ago

NASCAR on fox would do good to hire this guy

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u/NoFleas 8d ago

I knew they did it and I've walked into the web-strings but never saw it in action - pretty sweet!

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u/stuff_rulz 7d ago

Last summer I was watching my niece play soccer and I randomly felt web around my head and face then a little fella hung down from the brim of my hat, right in front of my face. It very much surprised me.

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u/Thebearjew559 7d ago

Did your niece win her soccer game?

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u/stuff_rulz 7d ago

Lol she's pretty little, they didn't really keep track but I think it might've been the day she got her first goal and hattrick. If so, I was keeping score and she very much won and was really happy we were all there to see it. Happened last year.

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u/cwilbur22 7d ago

I was thinking the same thing

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u/AmbassadorCheap3956 8d ago

I learned this from the ending of Charlotte’s Web the cartoon. Shit now I’m crying.

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u/Petraretrograde 8d ago

"Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye!"

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u/BrownSugarBare 7d ago

😭😭 I can hear the tiny voices 

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u/CharvelSoloist 7d ago

Was in the book too. I’m really old.

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u/KingPinLOC 7d ago

Omg memory unlocked

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u/BummedCPA 7d ago

The first time I watched that after becoming a dad, I ugly cried for a good ten minutes

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u/BeardySam 8d ago

THEY FLY NOW?!

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u/Vandergrif 7d ago

They fly now.

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u/True_Pound_8386 7d ago

There was an educational video I saw years ago with what occupies each layer of our atmosphere, this is where I learned spiders are big in one of them.

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u/FancyJesse 7d ago

no he rideinit

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u/PinkyandElric 7d ago

Back 20+ years ago I was out for a run on some dirt roads through sagebrush fields slightly higher in elevation that the surrounding valley. I think it was early fall. I came over a hill and saw what must have been hundreds of thousands of spiders all ballooning off the sage at the same time. It went off into the distance, and the sun was low. It was the most alien sight I've ever seen, like I was on a different planet.

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u/BtheBanker151 7d ago

And I would run the other fucking way very quickly

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u/GW_Beach 7d ago

omg, that sounds amazing

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u/swimwithdafishies 7d ago

Sounds quite beautiful. And I’m wary of spiders!

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u/Rubyhamster 6d ago

Wow, hundreds of thousands?? That is a thing that must be so rare that biologists would highly appreciate video evidence of it and time and place! A gigantic mass migration

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u/Far-Coconut6146 8d ago

That's what gets them to be cast away in storms too

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u/qu1ckbeam 8d ago

Where do they store their little volleyballs?

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u/ISelfReport 8d ago

No I'm imagining Charlotte yelling WILBURRR on an isolated island

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u/Altruistic-Piece-766 8d ago

I didn’t know they could do that. Very interesting

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u/LectroRoot 8d ago

Baby spiders will often do this to spread out to different territories. 

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u/Solid-Top-017 8d ago

U never watched Charlotte’s Web?

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u/XeroEnergy270 8d ago

That happens all the time here in Kentucky. I remember every soccer game in high school there'd be tons of them glistening in the stadium lights falling onto the field.

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u/Vaff_Superstar 8d ago

What time of year does this happen so I know when not to visit?

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u/XeroEnergy270 8d ago

Pretty much all of them except winter. They dont really get active til dusk though.

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u/Intelligenttrees32 7d ago

Hmmm very nice will not be visiting Kentucky now thank you very much lol

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u/nolancheck11 8d ago

And of course it comes right for you 😂

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u/Big-Farmer-2192 8d ago

Lmao bro immediately folded.

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u/Buttons840 7d ago

He wasn't screaming uncontrollably, so he did better than I would

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u/BlackberryPi7 8d ago

Giving Marvel ideas

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u/hauntingdreamspace 8d ago

I can't believe they've never found a way to use this in a Spiderman story

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u/Fit-Building-2560 8d ago edited 8d ago

This is interesting. A couple of years ago an article came out in a science magazine, stating that some spiders use the electricity in the atmosphere to "fly"/travel through the air. It's a combination of using their silk and also the electrical charges in the air.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4ed7Y5Xffg&t=22s

  • Electrostatic Repulsion: The silk threads pick up a negative charge from the environment and repel the negatively charged ground, lifting the spider into the air even without any wind. [1, 2]
  • Sensory Hairs: Spiders use tiny sensory hairs on their legs called trichobothria to detect these electrical potential changes before takeoff.

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u/Greta-Elephant5041 7d ago

They're part of the aeroplankton! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroplankton

Btw, everyone's favorite arachnid, the tick, also uses electric charge to jump to their victims.

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u/Thejuoien 7d ago

We just witnessed the most calculated attack on a human by a spider

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u/BarbaDeader 8d ago

Shooting rope?

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u/Acceptable-Jelly-340 8d ago

Just like me fr fr

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u/DMmeNoiceTits 8d ago

Can we shoot ropes together?

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u/Suspicious_Data_2393 7d ago

let’s cross ropes

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u/ApprehensiveStill412 7d ago

I feel like you just created a new homosexual term

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u/Suspicious_Data_2393 7d ago

learning the ropes i see

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u/Sassy_magoo 7d ago

Getting roped in

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u/ApprehensiveStill412 7d ago

Hey I wasn’t gonna check if it was real. In my younger years I clicked on twink out of curiousity and found out I wasn’t a fan.

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u/superbeance 7d ago

r / ropes

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u/MandiKat7 8d ago

His laugh is too relaxed and this comment section is too relaxed, absolutely not, immediately no

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u/Dangerous-Count-506 8d ago

Damnn so cool

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u/JiggleCoffee 7d ago

Why are they allowed to do this.

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u/Hyperaeon2 7d ago

Because nothing eats them when they do.

Just like how nothing ate the one that is within 10 feet of you now.

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u/Nos9684 7d ago

I don't understand how birds aren't picking them out of the air. Some probably do, but they seem comfortable enough doing it so I guess that is just the risk they are willing to take.

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u/iwasthen 8d ago

New fear unlocked.

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u/atthem77 7d ago

The internet wants me to never go outside again

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u/Suit-n-Ty-Guy 8d ago

Imagine being a bird and watching a tasty hamburger fly past you.

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u/Fluid_Ad4651 8d ago

They fly now?

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u/LabContent2863 8d ago

dafuq you mean now? literally before we existed.

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u/Fluid_Ad4651 8d ago

"They fly now?" is a famous and heavily mocked line from the 2019 film Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"

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u/LabContent2863 8d ago

aaaaaah....

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u/mcgradyshow 8d ago

wherever the wind takes me

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u/kaywrennn 7d ago

Suddenly I understand Spiderman so much better now.

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u/ApeofBass 7d ago

So it wasnt unrealistic when Spider-Man would shoot his webs up into nothing and swing around!

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u/Sorry_Im_Trying 7d ago

I appreciate that grown men will run away from flying spiders as well.

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u/Ok-Grocery-151 7d ago

This is why I catch a stray web across my face while in the middle of a damn parking lot 😂

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u/lexiconhuka 8d ago

I too yearn to sail away on my jizz rope

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u/DamnShaneIsThatU 8d ago

“Bye buddy. Hope you find your dad.”

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u/ForzaAllez 7d ago

So that Spider-Man move of spraying his web and swinging across buildings at long distances is indeed based on reality.

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u/QuandariousDingle54 7d ago

One of the reasons I avoid killing spiders that aren't problematic. They are so fucking cool

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u/CSRReeder 7d ago

I’m Mary Poppins Ya’ll

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u/vulcanjedi2814 7d ago

Fuck how come I never seen Peter Parker do this wtf

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u/Estratheoivan 7d ago

Now i know how spiderman can web sling without buildings

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u/OmarDaily 7d ago

So this is how Spiderman swings in the middle of a landfield on the last battle of Endgame.. Got it!.

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u/autistic_and_angry 6d ago

The end is gold lmfao

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u/ragcookie09 5d ago

Fun fact those strings contain negatively charge web making them attracted to the wind. Making them more likely to fly

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u/ylevans 8d ago

Now that's a spider, man.

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u/JamesBondMargarita 8d ago

How does a spider decide "yah, way tf over there is the spot"

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u/vespers191 8d ago

Yeah, even in the first part of the clip I was looking at it and thinking, wouldn't it be funny. And. It. Was.

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u/Lanky_Ad_8892 7d ago

So Starship Troopers was a documentary... lovely.

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u/MahatmaAndhi 7d ago

Imagine being able to just jizz into the air and ride it. Beats the queues at Stansted.

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u/Beren_Camlost 7d ago

I have seen spiders jump from one building to another. Like from 10 stories tall buildings to another across a 50 meter distance.

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u/Illustrious_Sea_962 7d ago

So long gay boys!

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u/BiggoYoun 7d ago

So Spider-Man was a documentary all along?

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u/SophieAsimov 7d ago

Fun fact, the negative charge of the web is actually what propels them upward, not just wind

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u/ResourceSuspicious20 7d ago

This very spider was the inspiration for Spiderman.

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u/Unhappy-River6306 7d ago

How come Spiderman doesn't shoot web out of his butt and take flight instead of swinging around?

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u/DarthCivicus 7d ago

Did the spider hit the guy with the camera? Looked like he got hit or ran into something while filming.

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u/Jujubi836 7d ago

Is this person can film this, I judge every bad camera man for now on

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u/KanIhelpyou 8d ago

Yeah some pilots get caught spiders 30k feet in the air, insane right??

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u/Cant_Work_On_Reddit 8d ago

Occasionally they’re wide spread enough that there will be legitimate spiderweb notams that get issued. In central California every couple years it seems like it gets pretty common for a week or so

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u/ShnaugShmark 8d ago

Oh god they can fly now imagine Brazilian wandering spiders dropping in on us oh no

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u/geeoff90 8d ago

“THWIP!”

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u/Cthulex 8d ago

That’s some cool „Children of Time“ stuff!

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u/sesoren65 8d ago

If you look closely, you can see her stream punk goggles

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u/BloodyStupid_johnson 8d ago

Reminds me of the Far Side buffaloes.

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u/UncleOdious 8d ago

"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

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u/NYCSkaterGirl 8d ago

Yeah i played spiderman 2. It was dope