Join Bay Nature and poet and physicist Peter Gorham for a talk on the science behind spider ballooning on Wednesday, December 3 from 12pm–1pm. During the five year (1831-1836) voyage of HMS Beagle, when the vessel was becalmed around 100 miles off the Argentinian coast, Charles Darwin observed small spiders landing on and then launching from the ship during a pronounced period of calm weather. This observation struck him as remarkable, and his detailed description, to any physicist with a modern knowledge of charge and electric fields, suggests there was a profound electrostatic interaction involved. Despite this, the standard explanation for spider ballooning (the technical term for this mode of aerial dispersal) is that air currents are entirely responsible for the motion in all its forms. We will turn this on its head, and show proof that spiders can charge their webs and use them for electrostatic levitation, making them the first (and hands-down the most creepy) electrostatic aeronauts known on Earth. While air currents do likely play a dominant role in spider flight, their ability to also avail themselves of electrostatic forces is a remarkable example of the range of evolutionary adaptation in one of the most diverse animal orders on the planet, spanning 136 families and over 53,000 species. This talk is free for Bay Nature Members and $5 for Nonmembers.
Meet Your Speaker:
Peter Gorham is currently a professor of physics in the Dept. of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His primary career focus has been what is known as Astroparticle physics: the study of the origin, acceleration, and propagation of subatomic particles of cosmic origin throughout the universe. Along the way however, Darwin's "Voyage of the Beagle" piqued his interest in the physics of possible spider electrodynamics. He lives in Honolulu with his wife Amy, where he enjoys sailing, surfing, and other watersports, and leads an active physics research group in his department.
This event is inspired by this Bay Nature piece by H.R. Smith: https://baynature.org/2025/09/18/how-spiders-fly/