Gliding Spiders Make an Appearance

A recent science journal published the first study done on various animals that have gliding or flying potential. Among the animals that the group studied, it included a unique kind of spider that is relatively thin compared to how large the spiders are. These flat spiders, which live in the American tropics, are capable of gliding from tree to tree by controlling their descent with their forelimbs.

Of course this sounds like an incredibly frightening thing to the average person, and it only gets better from there. These flat spiders are about the size of a coffee can lid and sometimes bigger, and they have camouflage to where sometimes it can be hard to see where they are. Luckily most of these flat spiders aren’t dangerous, and you won’t find them anywhere else besides rainforests.

This came as a big surprise to a lot of the scientific community, as spiders gliding isn’t anything special. But usually they glide with silk as a safety net or a tether. These flat spiders were simply steering with their legs and landing against trees with relative ease.

The spiders weren’t the only things they tested; a number of insects were dropped to see if they could fly or glide and not all of them made it. But certainly one of the most frightening things that will haunt some people is seeing a spider fly right into your face, even if it never happens.