The secret of how spiders can fly... they’re powered by static!

IT IS a mystery which once puzzled a young naturalist named Charles Darwin.

He was on the HMS Beagle in 1832 when he saw hundreds of spiders landing on his ship in calm weather, then take off at great speed with no winds to carry them.

Darwin thought the spiders must have flown more than 60 miles to reach the vessel. But that theory has been blown away by another.

According to scientists, electrostatic forces – the same forces that cause our hair to stand when rubbed with a balloon – can lift spider silk high into the air, allowing them to take off. Researchers at the University of Bristol isolated Linyphiid spiders from any air flow and generated the same levels of electricity found in nature.

When the electric field was turned on, the spiders began releasing silk before ‘sailing’ on it in the air. When the field was turned off, they fell back down to earth, the journal Current Biology reports.

Lead author Dr Erica Morley said: ‘Spiders can “balloon” using electrostatic forces alone, but in all likelihood they would use both wind and electricity.’