Talk:1415: Ballooning

Ballooning is a legitimate and natural type of movement for spiders http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ballooning_%28spider%29 Sebastian --141.101.98.59 05:49, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I personally saw several spiders swinging on web cords. The problem with Spiderman usual method of moving is that spiders can't shoot web so far. Also, I suspect that they use the swinging not as method to travel, but as part of building web. -- Hkmaly (talk) 09:57, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

That sounds a lot like the "Pendulum Traverse" (Google that for a good description if you need it, Wiki just has it as a sub-item under a glossary), although I'm personally an expert in neither arachnology nor rock-climbing so I might be wrong. For those spiders you mention, whether they're swinging with an actual aiming point at hand or it's just a behaviour that creates a random opportunity to extend the web size (along with breeze-assistance, it must explain a number of web-bridgings you can encounter) and thus is an evolved activity that has net benefit... I don't know. Like I said, I'm not an expert. ;) (But I bet if anyone can find an actual paper on the subject, it'd be a good inclusion for the article above!) 141.101.98.8 10:40, 1 September 2014 (UTC)