spider at speed

As I got into my car, I noticed a spider in the centre of a web spanning from my wing mirror back to the car. The spider was about 10mm across, easily visible, and in the centre of the web. I wondered how it was going to cope when travelling at speed.

I took off and noticed that the web started to stretch, and as I speeded up, the spider bunched himself to reduce the drag on his body. As I further increased speed, up to the maximum on the road of 40mph, I noticed that he was being thrown about in the web, in a nasty looking combination of violent vibrations, with ever increasing circles of movement, with the web also stretching backwards.

He slowly unravelled his previous tight ball with the occasional leg being thrown out and to the rear. Near the end of the journey he was looking like a stretched out skeleton with legs going in all directions. Clearly this was an experience that he was either finding extremely enjoyable, like being in a funfair, or he was suffering physical torment – I couldn’t tell - certainly he seemed to be still in one piece.

I stopped the car with the web shrinking back to its original shape. It then became clear that he was still in one piece, with two legs tied to the web. He rapidly pulled himself back together, unravelled the two lifelines, and moved fairly swiftly off the web, seemingly uninjured, but with a certain degree of having some trouble getting the limbs to move as smoothly as before.

I found the experience absolutely mind bending, with the spider and web seemingly not really any the worse of wear. Isn’t nature amazing!