Electric Fields Elicit Ballooning in Spiders

[Phorce]

Electric Fields Elicit Ballooning in Spiders

When one thinks of airborne organisms, spiders do not usually come to mind. However, these wingless arthropods have been found 4 km up in the sky [1], dispersing hundreds of kilometers [2]. To disperse, spiders “balloon,” whereby they climb to the top of a prominence, let out silk, and float away. The prevailing view is that drag forces from light wind allow spiders to become airborne [3], yet ballooning mechanisms are not fully explained by current aerodynamic models [4, 5]. The global atmospheric electric circuit and the resulting atmospheric potential gradient (APG) [6] provide an additional force that has been proposed to explain ballooning

Biologists take electricity seriously ?

[Maol]

Electricity in the Atmosphere
9–1The electric potential gradient of the atmosphere

https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_09.html

On an ordinary day over flat desert country, or over the sea, as one goes upward from the surface of the ground the electric potential increases by about 100 volts per meter. Thus there is a vertical electric field E of 100 volts/m in the air. The sign of the field corresponds to a negative charge on the earth’s surface. This means that outdoors the potential at the height of your nose is 200 volts higher than the potential at your feet! You might ask: “Why don’t we just stick a pair of electrodes out in the air one meter apart and use the 100 volts to power our electric lights?” Or you might wonder: “If there is really a potential difference of 200 volts between my nose and my feet, why is it I don’t get a shock when I go out into the street?”

We will answer the second question first........ click the link above ^^

This the link to the whole series of Feynman's lectures.

https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/

[crawler]

I seem to recall that spider ballooning has been covered before here. Gerald Pollack will have been mentioned.
And re spiders walking on ceilings. Pollack again.