Spiders…ever noticed that they always looking at the world upside from their carefully webbed homes?
Puzzled I stared at this spider, which I found in the forest near me, wondering as to why this tiny little creature will be hanging, feeding, spinning and bridging it’s way through life all upside down. Turns out that some spiders spend most of their lives hanging suspended by their legs, and ‘walk’ by swinging under the influence of gravity, therefore carrying their own body mass easier. Most animals spend their lives on their legs and use earth as their main support for their forward, upward and sideward motions. So I went and had a deeper look into the lives of our Arachnids.

According  to research it was discovered that most spiders have evolved disproportionately longer legs as opposed to their ground living mates that run around, and they can move faster too. Almost like acrobats moving across the air on their sky equipment. Not only that, but it seems that the larger spiders are a rather clumsy bunch compared to the skywalkers, their long legs restricting them in their montion, which would have been so much more convenient in the bridging process. The mere fact that they have to support their owns body masses makes it more difficult in movement.

With this research it was finally proven that the energetic efficiency of such motion stems from the same physical principle used to run the grandfather’s clock — motion of a pendulum under the influence of gravity.” Isn’t nature fascinating…?

#spiders #web #nature #gardenroute #wildernessza #wildaboutlife #forest #naturesway #howzitsouthafrica #walks #wildlife https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/