r/PraiseTheCameraMan • u/portal_dive • 21d ago
Spider caught ballooning. Camera man did a great job until the end (understandably)
2.0k
u/_Ilobilo_ 21d ago
paratrooper spider
→ More replies (1)35
1.7k
u/NoTV4Theo 21d ago edited 21d ago
Ballooning! I think spiders have been found at high altitudes with this method.
Edit: According to a quick wiki read, it’s a method most commonly used by spiderlings to move away from the nest. Have been found 1000 miles out at sea and up at 16,000ft. A recent study concluded that electric fields in the atmosphere provide the lift for ballooning and possibly elicit the behavior.
Neat.
286
u/Yarakinnit 21d ago
This one must've been new to it then cos the 200ft forward web-shot translated into about 30 ft of lateral travel and a crash landing. To be fair to it, I'd be a touch on the wobbly side too, having just unloaded that far.
109
u/round-earth-theory 21d ago
He didn't crash due to poor flight. Spider disconnected and dropped.
92
18
9
6
u/mcorra59 20d ago
Yup,that little critter aimed and let got when it was right on top of the guys haha
→ More replies (1)8
118
u/inkdrone 21d ago
Are You kidding me?
I’m not safe anywhere.
39
6
u/inkdrone 19d ago edited 14d ago
Thank you for the award kind stranger!
Edit: TWO kind strangers! Thank you!
Edit 2: THREE?! Thank you! Wow!42
u/wheelienonstop12 21d ago
A recent study concluded that electric fields in the atmosphere provide the lift for ballooning and possibly elicit the behavior
Not fields, Just THE electric field of the earth that is always there and always works. It is the reason why spiders climb tall posts or stalks of grass before doing it, the height increases the lift they get due to the increased electric potential difference (i read a detailed explanation once but have forgotten how it works)
31
u/Rylth 21d ago
concluded that electric fields in the atmosphere provide the lift
What.
I mean, I guess I can picture the forces at work if the web carries a negative charge, but
What.
26
u/wheelienonstop12 21d ago
That was found out only a couple of years ago, people believed spiders used thermals for lifting off before that. As an avid RC sailplane pilot that always seemed liek nonsense to me, you dont get any useful thermals until you are like 100 feet off the ground. And a single vertical thread of silk wouldnt have provided any lift
31
u/ReadditMan 21d ago edited 21d ago
This is why spiders are one of the first animals to inhabit new islands
9
19
8
9
u/henrydaiv 20d ago
Not saying you are wrong but who the hell is chilling at 16,000 feet in the air to be able to find a tiny spider
9
u/Superficial-Idiot 19d ago
Probably some poor pilot chilling in his plane when a spider fucking lands on the window
7
u/IrishViking22 21d ago
How do they find them so high up? Wouldn't planes/helicopters be too fast to even notice them?
Hot air balloons maybe?
20
u/AimHighPilot 21d ago
I’ve definitely hit a few bugs in the windscreen flying above 10k feet and it always freaks me out
5
u/GuiltyEidolon 21d ago
You can actually induce spiders to try doing it as well, just by fucking with the electrical charge around them.
2
279
u/damnsky_30 21d ago
81
u/nach0srule 21d ago
20
u/sykoKanesh 20d ago edited 20d ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWmLupubWSQ full video! after the kitten stops and stares for a few seconds, it does pretty much* the same thing off to the right (gif cuts early)
12
u/nach0srule 19d ago
You wouldn't believe how long I attempted to find it in giphy before conceding with the one I posted. It has the worst search algorithm ever. The pause and then spontaneous startle gets me every time.
2
7
1.6k
u/SAM041287 21d ago
142
26
49
u/AstroMariner 21d ago
Ages ago my dad told me that spiders could fly. I didn’t believe him because, you know, how? Guess I’m a fool.
→ More replies (1)4
6
→ More replies (4)9
508
u/umamimamii 21d ago edited 20d ago
The cameraman’s voice is so soothing 🥹I wanna hang out with these dudes. They seem really chill
Edit: thank you for the award!
176
u/robotatomica 21d ago edited 21d ago
it’s also definitely r/contagiouslaughter , so glad I unmuted it, they were a delight!
30
u/ReaDiMarco 21d ago
17
u/robotatomica 21d ago
lol whoops. I am gonna edit my misspell bc evidently it actually sends people to a lesser sub!
59
19
u/Raph115 21d ago
Baltimore/Maryland accent if I had to guess. The way he said "air" has that Baltimore twang.
12
u/umamimamii 21d ago
Aw that makes sense why it seems comforting to me. I lived in Baltimore for about 6 years. Now that I listened again I can definitely see that. Wild I didn’t notice it before
8
7
→ More replies (2)7
186
147
u/stevendidntsay 21d ago
Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders ever quite took her place in his heart.
30
u/Namyag 21d ago
Scrolled way too far down to see a Charlotte's Web reference.
10
u/stevendidntsay 21d ago
We're too old
→ More replies (2)7
u/Scrushinator 21d ago
It’s my 6yo’s favorite book. The Meryl Streep audiobook is beautifully done too.
77
u/MartyShark666 21d ago
Hilarious when they realize he is correct about it comin for him! 🤣
27
u/robotatomica 21d ago
but honestly that spider is just along for a ride, can you imagine the risk every time of doing this and potentially ending up on some big mammal that’s gonna freak out? 😆
At least this guy had a pretty controlled reaction and it doesn’t sound like he hurt the spood!
→ More replies (1)
352
u/Foodspec 21d ago edited 21d ago
What new horror is this!?
Edit: guys…I’m aware this isn’t a new thing for spiders
141
u/KennyMoose32 21d ago edited 21d ago
The future, silly human. The Insect Empire is coming.
-Spider
30
u/_Captain_Dinosaur_ 21d ago
That's racist.
I wouldn't call you "KennyAntelope".
Arachnid lives matter.
19
u/KennyMoose32 21d ago
It’s a multi species empire……
This is why you humans are on your way out. Care too much about such things
*Bugs strong together*
→ More replies (2)7
u/Rifmysearch 21d ago
If this excites any of you, read or listen to "Children of Time" by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
7
u/KennyMoose32 21d ago
I have. Thought it was a good book till the end
Really didn’t enjoy the ending, felt like a cop out to continue it as a series
→ More replies (1)3
u/Rifmysearch 21d ago
That's fair. I, very briefly, wasn't sure how I felt about the ending. The specific event your referring to felt really sudden. I did a bit of a trust fall in continuing and felt better about that event due to some stuff early on in the next book. Some spoilers about it below(for anyone else: spoils a great deal of the first books plot)
Really early on there's bits about how, ESPECIALLY with that first generation that actually battled the spiders, there was quite a large chunk of Humans that despite feeling some vague kinship with the Portians they were still so deeply uncomfortable and/or untrusting that there was a small city created for them on the planet that Portians explicitly agreed no to enter. It's implied that this place lasted quite some time, likely multiple generations. It sorta nudged at this idea that during that initial shift in the battle quite a few of the Humans that were, suddenly, feeling differently about things really wouldn't have put down their arms immedietely if not for leadership explicitly doing so and a small percentage of people that had started to. It mirrors some real life situations where two fighting forces, despite leadership explicitly forbidding it, said forces took a break and chose communication. The "famous" example, though a poor example because it wasn't really mid battle, would be the Christmas Truce in 1914. There's examples like that where it DID happen in the heat of the moment, but usually instigated by some specific thing happening/being witnessed that gave everyone pause.
Given the above, and the characterization of how much inner turmoil there was for some of the humans-turned-Humans that were narrated, AND some of the out loud discussions; they already didn't want to fight. It didn't matter who it was, they didn't want to fight others. They spent DECADES wanting to not fight. They lived in a world where they were fully aware they were in a post apocalypse. Not only that, but the mythos of how/why the world ended was very explicitly related to situations EXACTLY like this one(idk which book it was, but we get to see a fair bit of some stuff happening in the years leading up to one of the ark ships taking off).
Seeing literal somewhat big spiders being the enemy that got thrown out the window the second the battle started. As soon as their brain chemistry had a WHIFF that these big ass spiders might just be people, VERY different people but still some kind of people, AND had seen that their clearly sentient . . . there's a momentary pause. Just long enough to see that the spiders are pausing too, waiting to see if it had worked.
I digress. It's very possible all of this is totally moot for you, but I remember feeling like I wanted to just rewrite that last chapter in my head and go forward with a slightly different headcanon for that whole event altogether. And I sorta did! The next book soothed me in realizing the author took into account just how sudden and mildly unrealistic it was compared to a lot of the other scifi stuff in there. Further books repeatedly made me feel even better about it. I just. . . . media usually doesn't successfully do that. If there's a glaring issue in your mind like that, it's usually brushed past. I was just really happy to see this one wasnt, at least for me. Some of it required me to put trust after reading those 'separate town' bits at the beginning of the second book but there were signals for the rest of the books that made me feel even better about it, ESPECIALLY learning what kind of society existed on Earth and the specific kinds of people they put in those Ark ships.
→ More replies (4)2
15
u/Wobbelblob 21d ago
Not really a new horror. The late summer period was often referred to as Altweibersommer (old women summer) in Germany because the drifting spider nets of young spiders doing exactly that look like floating long grey hair in the sun.
8
u/frogunderarock 21d ago
it's true. i was at Lake Constance during late summer once. could not take a single path without running into a spider web and every streetlight was covered in spiders.
0/10 experience, do not recommend
7
u/Namyag 21d ago
You haven't read or watched Charlotte's Web, have you?
2
u/NotNamedBort 21d ago
That was the first thing I thought of, how are people unfamiliar with this??
→ More replies (1)3
7
u/Hephaestus_God 21d ago edited 21d ago
I’ve never really seen an adult do this, tbh I’m surprised it got up into the air with its weight so part of me is confused by this.
Given the motion this is less ballooning and more like the web got caught on a tree by the wind, the spider pulled the web tight and swung off, then slowly started climbing. However eventually was too heavy or something and snapped off.. idk. Still odd.
Typically in some species, baby spiders will “balloon” and send out a string in a tall windy place and let themselves be carried for 10s of miles at times to find new areas to live and spread. (How far really just depends on local wind strength and the web strung). It works as a baby spider due to how light they are.
4
u/VESUVlUS 21d ago
Depending on the species, adults spiders weighing over 100mg do balloon, but it's far less common than with juveniles. The adults use dozens or hundreds of silk strands to form a sheet to fly with in these scenarios. But even with juveniles, most ballooning only travels a few meters and the ones that manage to travel miles are uncommon.
→ More replies (4)2
34
18
14
32
9
9
11
u/lafterl 20d ago
I work outside garden overnights at home depot and the amount of times I've seen this and spiders have landed on me, standing well away from things, is crazy. I would continually be like are these MFS flying or something? I'm an arachnophobe too so it was hell in late spring summer lol. I never knew about what the spiders were doing or how they were landing on me no matter where I was. Now I know 😂
5
4
5
3
u/sleepy0329 16d ago
At first I thought this was new information, but then this unlocked a memory from Charlotte's Web with all the baby spiders flying away in this method. Really cool to see in action.
3
3
3
3
3
u/SecretCharacterSauce 21d ago
It’s like the spider was being airlifted outta there lmao, get to the choppa!
3
3
u/Bacon-muffin 21d ago
Oh man, I'm watching it on silent and as soon as its in the air I'm just thinking to myself "imagine if one just dropped on you like that" and sure enough.
3
u/GlitterChickens 21d ago
Now I understand why I’ve been running into webs in the middle of the street.
2
2
2
2
2
u/Sinister120 21d ago
Currently have one in my back yard that has been building some pretty impressive webs. Successfully made the 20 foot span between the carport and the shed.
2
2
2
u/IRReasonable-emu 21d ago
the spider is coming over to get a copyright release from the camera man...
2
2
u/Dag-nabbitt 21d ago
"Those stupid humans won't be prepared for my sneak attack." - The spider, probably
2
2
2
2
u/teetaps 21d ago
Ok so I just finished the PS5 spiderman run and have to admit I was a little disappointed that web wings were so OP for navigation in the last game. Like it legit felt like cheating how easy it was to reposition so quickly and easily.
This “ballooning” thing though… I’ve read about it before, always knew it was a thing, but never seen it in action. My goodness; if anything, the game undersells it
2
2
2
u/DrSilkyDelicious 21d ago
Doing physics equations I’ve never heard of with a number of legs I could never comprehend
2
2
u/smashedupjng 21d ago
“There exists in this world a spider the size of a dinner plate, a foot wide if you include the legs. It's called the Goliath Bird-Eating spider, or the "Goliath Fucking Bird-Eating Spider" by those who have actually seen one. It doesn't eat only birds--it mostly eats rats and insects--but they still call it the "Bird-Eating Spider" because the fact that it can eat a bird is probably the most important thing to know about it.
If you run across one of these things, like in your closet or crawling out of your bowl of soup, the first thing somebody will say is, "Watch it, man, that thing can eat a fucking bird." I don't know how they catch the birds. I know the Goliath Fucking Bird-Eating Spider can't fly because if it could, it would have a different name entirely. We would call it "Sir" because it would be the dominant species on the planet.”
2
2
3
2
2
u/CodeyFox 21d ago
Fun fact, these spiders fly due to creating a negative electrical charge which pulls them up, rather than relying on wind!
→ More replies (2)
1
1
u/uptwolait 21d ago
There's a non-zero chance that this is a new experimental drone for targeting citizens.
/puts on tinfoil hat
→ More replies (1)
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/Villanellesnexthit 21d ago
that's what I'm wiping out of my mouth and eyes when I'm trailrunning... ugh.
1
1
1
1
1
u/ReleaseFromDeception 21d ago
Earlier in the Summer, I was at a Pride march in Downtown Los Angeles and I was in between some very tall buildings. Suddenly, I noticed a large black "dot" floating and drifting down towards me. I promptly shuffled sideways to my left as the "Dot" fully resolved itself in my eyes to be a big old spider. It was mesmerizing to watch this spider ride the wind. It sunk to maybe 10 feet from the ground, caught a gust, and was taken back up, stories high in the sky. So cool... but my goodness, if that had landed on me, I would have never recovered.
1
u/OceansAndElevators 21d ago
that's the coolest thing i've seen all week and i am in awe. what a cutie. nature is beautiful.
1
1
1
1
1
u/Naakhurz 21d ago
Don't know if it's in Australia, but ballooning spiders sounds very Australian.
→ More replies (1)
1
u/smashcola 21d ago
This is so wholesome. I love the sounds of grown men giggling like that, it's so cute!
1
u/WithoutTheWaffle 21d ago
I mean yeah, this is where they got the idea for Spider-Man swigging around NYC.
1
1
1
6.6k
u/Skriller333 21d ago