[K0balt]

Many organisms are sensitive to electrical charge, including types of spiders that use it to fly to distant locations. It’s possible that plants may use it as a signal of coming rain intensity?

I have noticed something quite interesting: in my nursery, actual rain stimulates germination, leaf formation, flowering, and budding in a way that collected rainwater applied over identical timeframes in identical quantities using sprinklers that approximate rain drop physics fails to do. Well-water performs roughly the same as collected rainwater.

I’m speculating that there is some other signal present with actual rain that is lacking in the surrogate process. It could easily be electrical charge.

[jpsouth]

I’m not sure whether I truly want clarification on this or not, but

> including types of spiders that use it to fly to distant locations.

Really?

I need to leave this planet.

[KaiserPro]

They are only tiny little things. They let out a long piece of silk, something like a meter or two, and thats long enough with enough drag to lift them away.

Now, if you have a fear of all spiders, I feel for you. If you have a fear of big fuckoff spiders, I can assure you that these are tiny, smaller than a pin head.

[jpsouth]

Yeah I’ve got a fear of big fuck off spiders, thankfully I’m in England so nothing major, but as we approach winter plenty of house spiders are going to appear out of the cracks!

[pjc50]

It's called "ballooning"; only done by basically newborn tiny spiders, that string out some silk which is light enough to be affected by wind or electrostatic effects.

[jpsouth]

Fascinating, I wonder if there’s some evolutionary advantage for this, maybe spreading out more so they don’t encroach on each others territories from an early age and make their own home?

[K0balt]

The blue giant tarantula of Hispaniola climbs to the tops of trees to absorb electrical charge from nearby thunderstorms, jumping down onto unsuspecting prey and stunning it with their electrical charge before injecting it with venom.

This allows them to attack much larger prey like spider monkeys and chickens, which they liquify on the inside with their venom, a kind of external digestive process.

After the liquefaction is well under way with the venom paralyzed prey, they suck out the nutrient rich liquid, often sharing the hapless victim with sister tarantulas from the same nest.

Thankfully, blue giant tarantulas are entirely a figment of my imagination.

[brookst]

I was totally prepared to avoid checking because it’s too good of a story to ruin with a misguided insistence on facts. And then you ruined it. For shame.

[jpsouth]

I couldn't read past the third paragraph out of fear. I'm resigning myself to live in a world of giant, flying, electrified, blue tarantulas.

[Chris2048]

Don't worry, they are small and only fly just far enough to land in your mouth as you sleep.

[jpsouth]

Hahaha as I said in another comment, impressive protein gains overnight!

[ben_w]

Yup, real thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballooning_(spider)

[ChoGGi]

Here's where I mention the old wives tale of spiders crawling into your nice warm holes while you sleep.

(That was meant to come off as creepy, not sexually creepy though)

[jpsouth]

The protein gains overnight though are impressive I believe

[rpaddock]

"Many organisms are sensitive to electrical charge..."

Flowers generate electrostatic fields as a kind of 'gas gauge' for available nectar, see:

Detection and Learning of Floral Electric Fields by Bumblebees by Dominic Clarke et al. Science 340, 66 (2013); DOI: 10.1126/science.1230883 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/340/6128/66

https://www.npr.org/2013/02/22/172611866/honey-its-electric-...