Aerial dispersal by Actinopus spiderlings (Araneae: Actinopodidae)

FERRETTI NELSON; POMPOZZI GABRIEL; COPPERI SOFÍA; SCHWERDT LEONELA

JOURNAL OF ARACHNOLOGY

AMER ARACHNOLOGICAL SOC

Lugar: Nueva York; Año: 2013 vol. 41 p. 407 - 408

0161-8202

Ballooning, a form of dispersal rarely 24 seen in mygalomorph spiders, was observed in 13 individuals of an undetermined species of Actinopus under laboratory conditions. After ascending a stick, each spiderling initiated ballooning from either the horizontal lines between sticks or from the stick´s edges. They became airborne by dropping and dangling from a dragline which then gradually lifted and lengthened to 10-15 29 cm in the breeze, broke at its attachment point, and served as a ballooning thread. This method of ballooning has also been observed in araneomorphs and other species of mygalomorphs, and this is probably a more primitive and shorter distance form of ballooning than that typically practiced by higher araneomorphs, which produce airborne silk lines that are pulled from the spider by air currents and are used either as ?spanning lines? or as ?balloon lines? that allow the spider itself to become airborne.