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  • How Spiders Fly: Electricity Instead of Wings

    How Spiders Fly: Electricity Instead of Wings

    Some spider species use their threads to soar through the air. They employ more than just wind and thermals to accomplish this. Additionally, even in a dull environment, the electrical field of the ground still gives them the required propulsion. Since spiders lack wings, they shouldn’t be able to fly in reality. But sometimes you witness them soaring through the air on long silk strands, dramatically dispelling this belief. Many spider species have been documented to use this flying strategy for a very long period of time.

    The Electrostatic Processes

    The “Beagle,” Darwin’s research vessel, has already had guests with eight legs. He explained how a spider entered the aircraft and left once again, “thrusting four or five threads out. They were more than 3.3 feet (1 m) long and stretched upward away from each other, starting from the gland openings. Suddenly the spider released its grip from the post and was quickly carried out of sight,” said Charles Darwin.

    Darwin reported that the day was hot and windless. He attributed the spider’s ability to fly in spite of the lull to minute thermal convection movements. In fact, the theory could help explain certain crucial facets of the phenomenon. Darwin also had a sneaking suspicion that electrostatic forces might be involved.


    The spreading of the threads that were shooting out in a fan-like pattern, seeming to oppose one another, reinforced this.

    The belief that spider flying was solely dependent on aerodynamics persisted up to the present day, despite such signs of potential charge effects. Scientifically speaking, this made sense. However, study findings that provide electrostatic processes with an additional supportive function have just been released.

    If aerodynamic lift alone is to blame for recent advancements, then difficulties that become apparent upon closer inspection are likely to have played a role. For instance, it is unknown how spiders, which can weigh up to 100 milligrams, utilize their filaments to launch themselves upwards at a startlingly high rate of speed despite the lack of any breeze. Additionally, Darwin had previously seen the spreading of the bundles of expelled threads. Additionally, species of flying spiders were discovered at an altitude of 2.5 miles (4 km), which presented a significant fluid dynamics difficulty.

    By taking into account the impacts of the Atmospheric Potential Gradient (PG), these issues may be resolved. Charge disparities between the atmosphere and the earth are involved in this. The Earth’s surface is negatively charged, whereas the ionosphere, which is more than 43 miles (70 km) above it, is mostly positively charged. The whole region between them is impacted by the disparity. As a result, the atmosphere above the ground is positively charged in comparison to it, creating an electrical potential difference between a location on the ground and a point in the atmosphere above. Up to around 100 volts per meter are possible. However, the intensity of the impact fluctuates and is strongly influenced by the weather.

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    Sensitive to Electric Fields

    Frontinellina frutetorum, the flying spider of the Linyphiidae family
    Frontinellina frutetorum, the flying spider of the Linyphiidae family.

    This is already evident from the way the spider’s strands repel one another. Additionally, silk filaments are electrically charged. As a result, they will always interact with each other and the air field, which will result in movement. But how can the spider predict if the pressures would be powerful enough to pull it along with its thread in advance?

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    It must be able to detect electric fields and assess their strength in order to achieve this. Insects’ ability to accomplish this, at least in certain cases, has been known about for a while now.

    Erica Morley and Daniel Robert from the University of Bristol investigated the effects of fields on spiders in 2018. In controlled laboratory studies, canopy spiders (Linyphiidae) were subjected to electric fields of comparable intensity to those found in the environment during various weather situations.

    Indeed, in response, the spiders made obvious preparations to take to the air. When the fields were turned on or off, the flying creatures either rose or fell.


    It follows that the electrical contact between the animals and the external fields must play a part in the ascent, in addition to the aerodynamic lift. It is thought that spiders are able to detect electric fields via the movement of specialized tactile hairs called trichobothria located on the animal’s skin.

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    The displacement of spider trichobothria via mechanical means. Erigone‘s trichobothria. (Credit: ScienceDirect)

    The air potential gradient and wind conditions have a significant impact on the lives of flying spiders. Even so, they likely have some sway. Charbel Habchi from Notre Dame University Louaize in Lebanon and Mosbeh M. Khalid Jawed from the University of California, Los Angeles published the findings of their computational modeling in a paper this year (2022). According to the findings of the two engineers, spiders may manipulate fluidic and electrostatic conditions by adjusting the quantity and length of their filaments. Therefore, the flying critters were not totally powerless.

    The mechanism by which the spinning threads are electrically charged remains unclear. Consequently, this interesting example of nature using an electric motor to power itself is likely to continue to reveal its mysteries for years to come.

  • How Frogs Catch and Swallow Their Prey

    How Frogs Catch and Swallow Their Prey

    Frogs have to remove insects like flies and crickets from their sticky tongues before they can ingest them. The process by which cane toads accomplish this feat has recently been determined by scientists. As the research shows, sophisticated tongue gymnastics are necessary to get the victim far enough into the pharynx to be gutted. The hyoid bone, which has never before been linked to swallowing, is also crucial.

    Frogs will stick their lengthy tongues out of their mouths while pursuing flying insects. Insects often attach to this and then fall into the amphibian’s mouth if the strategy is successful. The specifics of how frogs extend their tongues and utilize them to grab prey have been studied extensively. Studies have shown, for instance, that frog tongues are not sticky until they are in touch with food.

    However, according to Rachel Keeffe of Mount Holyoke College, whose team has investigated what occurs following prey acquisition, almost everything that occurs after the mouth shuts has remained a mystery.

    What’s Happening Inside

    How Frogs Catch and Swallow Their Prey

    Keeffe and her colleagues videotaped cane toads eating to get insight into the process by which frogs remove food from their tongues before swallowing it. Because of their size (cane toads may grow to be as long as 5.9 inches or 15 cm), the inside workings of their mouths are easily studied. Keeffe and her colleagues kept the animals in a Plexiglas enclosure and fed them crickets during the research.

    The tongues of cane toads can grow to be as long as 80% of their heads.

    They used a high-speed camera and X-ray footage to capture the action on film. They were able to see what was happening inside the toads. Metal beads were placed in strategic places in the toads’ mouths to enhance the visibility of the necessary structures under X-ray.

    The resultant video material was then recreated by Keeffe into 3D animations so he could examine the movement patterns more closely. She used the animations to create a detailed flow chart that describes the whole feeding cycle of a cane toad, from the time it first spots the cricket until the time it dies in the toad’s stomach and the toad returns to its original condition.

    The Hyoid Retracts Into the Neck

    The results surprised researchers because they revealed a more complex system than anyone had imagined for how a frog prepares its prey before placing it in its throat. The hyoid bone plays a crucial role in this system. The frog’s tongue is attached to the hyoid bone, a cartilaginous plate located near the floor of the mouth. When the frog lunges at its target with its tongue, the hyoid bone retracts into the neck, bringing the tongue and prey back into the mouth.

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    toad tongue hyoid
    Some of the hyoid muscles, seen here with the tongue outstretched. The color blue describes the hyoid cartilage. (Credit: Oxford Academic)

    Records have shown that during this recovery movement, the tongue moves much further into the throat than during prey capture. This process involves a network of cartilage and muscle that extends so far back in the frog’s throat that it touches the organ that pumps blood throughout the body. The next movement involves the tongue bone thrusting forward, causing the tongue to be pushed against the hard palate of the mouth and pulled back from the pharynx.

    In this way, the esophagus encloses the prey that is stuck to the tongue. Keeffe thinks that frogs’ palatal grooves, or extra rows of teeth, help with the frictional action necessary to remove prey from the frogs’ sticky tongues. This is a very interesting development, considering that until this discovery, the purpose of the grooves and small teeth was a mystery. He also mentions the hyoid bone, which was not previously linked to swallowing.

    It Takes Less Than Two Seconds

    It takes less than two seconds for the toad to go from seeing the cricket to its original form. This is still far longer than was anticipated. The time it takes to acquire prey is much less than two seconds.

    It was also intriguing to see the toad’s intricate swallowing process in action, both when it successfully caught the cricket and when it failed to do so.

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    In any event, experts believe that the toad’s tongue has to make its way back down the throat before it can start a new feeding cycle.
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    Keeffe suggests that future studies should investigate whether or not the swallowing technique of cane toads is shared by other frogs, or whether or not they use other methods of digestion.