If late effect are anything to go by , you should be less concerned aboutswallowing spidersin your sleep and more concerned about shuttlecock - eat up spiders raining down on your head . AsThe Guardianreports , late footage from the Brazilian countryside shows G of spider seemingly debar in mid - air . ( Arachnophobes might want to give the video below a miss . )
In reality , they are n’t fall at all . The spiders , which probably belong to to a South American coinage calledParawixiabistriata , are merely crawling on an radical - fine and nearly invisible web that attaches to two objects , like Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree or crotch hair , to form a canopy .
So why do they do it ? To catch prey , naturally . They ’re probable to snag a motley of insect and peradventure even small birds in their communal web , which can stretch up to 13 metrical unit across-the-board . ( And yes , they eat the birds , too . )
Brazilian biota prof Adalberto make Santos tellsThe GuardianthatP. bistriataare some of the rare “ social ” spiders that do this . They leave their connection up overnight , hide out in the nearby vegetation , and then return at aurora to feast .
While this lifelike phenomenon is certainly unsettling , it is n’t exactlyrare . Residents of the southeast municipality of Espírito Santo do Dourado , where the video was shot , said these “ spider rainfall ” are coarse when the weather is hot and humid .
Here ’s another video from Santo Antônio da Platina in southerly Brazil in 2013 .
Other species of spider have been known to jump off into the wind and " surf " on strands of silk as a way of getting around . They do this to escape menace or get to food or mate in other location , and casing of " wanderer escape " have been recorded all over the earthly concern . Some especially adventurous spider have even been known to cross oceans by “ ballooning ” their way from one acres mass to the next .
[ h / tThe Guardian ]
