Saharan Rolling Spider

Posted by Queuebot in Animal on April 9, 2009 at 4:24 pm



[YouTube - Link]


When travelling down a sand dune, the Saharan rolling spider (Araneus rota) is capable of rolling on its outstretched legs, achieving speeds of over 4 mph.  It looks "like a small, unusually fast tumbleweed."

– via spiegel

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Minnesotastan.


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14 comments to "Saharan Rolling Spider"

  1. lannaxe96
    April 9th, 2009 at 4:24 pm

    That is to cool!

  2. LisaL
    April 9th, 2009 at 4:34 pm

    Lol that was pretty awesome. Kinda freaky how it went in to the guys hand though o_O

  3. endgame47
    April 9th, 2009 at 5:15 pm

    It looks like it tripped and was just falling down the dune. lol

  4. Byrd Brain
    April 9th, 2009 at 6:10 pm

    The cameraman sucked. Pan with the spider, would you?

  5. Johnny Cat
    April 9th, 2009 at 8:43 pm

    I'm unable to resist quoting Griffin Dunne from Johnny Dangerously: OOHH MYGOD! OHHHH MYGOD!

  6. SenorMysterioso
    April 9th, 2009 at 8:57 pm

    weeeee

    reminds me of a wacky wall crawler

  7. Christophe
    April 9th, 2009 at 9:45 pm

    Did that once in the stairs. Yes I was much quicker......

  8. Thomas
    April 9th, 2009 at 9:53 pm

    Gah, spiders wig me out. Don't touch it, man! Kill it with fire!

  9. Foreigner1
    April 10th, 2009 at 2:44 am

    Nice to see how big (or small) this spider is- My main problem with these nature documentaries is that they more than often show us the most wonderful animals without scale or size-reference. And so you see ants and spiders in close-up with as endresult that I wake up middle of the night screaming because I dream of car-size ants and spiders... :shock:

    ...Nice little spider with wonderful abilty! ;-)

  10. Joe Smith
    April 10th, 2009 at 4:44 am

    When I see that I keep thinking it looks like the sand is so hot it doesn't want it's feet touching it more than it has to.

  11. Morgan
    April 10th, 2009 at 9:21 am

    yuk

  12. Padraig
    April 10th, 2009 at 1:26 pm

    @Joe Smith: my intial thought as well... :D

  13. Viola
    April 11th, 2009 at 2:38 pm

    Weee!

  14. Neil C
    April 11th, 2009 at 8:11 pm

    Is this critter rolling like a wheel or a ball?

    I don't mean to discount the neatness of this, which is secure, but the german narrator comments that the spider stands as disproof of the statement that the wheel does not instantiate in nature, and if it's rolling like a ball, other instances come to mind: spherical seedpods 'designed' to roll away from parent trees, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if another reader can think of a true wheel in nature as well. The biochemical mechanism of the flagella 'hub' comes to mind as an iffy candidate.


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