A study that examined the movement speeds of 258 spider species revealed that there are spiders that can move at speeds fast enough to outrun a running human.
While spiders are often associated with spinning webs and remaining still, waiting for prey, they can surprisingly move with surprising agility. A new, unreviewed paper investigating the movement speeds of 258 spider species from around the world has been published on the preprint server bioRxiv.
Evolutionary biomechanics of maximum running speed in spiders (Araneae) | bioRxiv
The world's fastest spider tops 3.5 meters per second | New Scientist
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2532086-the-worlds-fastest-spider-tops-3-5-metres-per-second/
Scientists Ranked 258 Spider Species by Speed. The Fastest Can Outrun You : ScienceAlert
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-worlds-fastest-spider-has-been-identified-and-it-can-can-outrun-a-human
A research team from Greifswald University in Germany and Imperial College London in the UK collected running ability data from 258 spider species across 64 families to investigate how body shape and ecology affect the maximum running speed of spiders.
First, the research team collected 162 species of live spiders by conducting fieldwork in the UK, North America, Southern Europe, and Australia, as well as by obtaining specimens from pet shops. After measuring the weight of these spiders, they were made to run on A4 or A3 graph paper to measure the speed at which they moved between two points.
This is what the experimental setup looked like. Most of the spiders were made to run when gently touched with a paintbrush, but some spiders were not so cooperative. In some cases, compressed air was blown onto the spiders to make them run.
In addition to the data obtained from their experiments, the research team also collected running data from 96 other spider species reported by other researchers. Analysis of the data revealed that
A running speed of 12.9 km/h is faster than the average human jogging speed of 7-10 km/h, meaning the Brown's Huntsman spider moves faster than a normal running human. The Brown's Huntsman spider weighs about 3g, which is relatively large for a spider, but it is well-balanced so that its abdomen is not too heavy.
Generally, spiders tend to run faster the larger they are, but some spiders are far faster than their size would suggest. Among them , the Oonops pulcher (orange goblin spider), which is about 1.5 mm long and weighs only 0.1 mg, reportedly surprised the research team by moving at speeds exceeding 20 cm per second (0.72 km per hour).
The graph below shows the maximum running speed of spiders on the vertical axis and their weight on the horizontal axis, both on a logarithmic scale. Generally, the running speed increases with increasing weight, but there are some exceptions.
These findings support the idea that the fastest animals are not necessarily the largest, and that body size and anatomical structure, which limit muscle energy, influence speed. In spiders, in addition to body size, the length of their legs is also shown to be an important factor.
Furthermore, the fastest runners relative to their body size were spiders that hunted on the ground. It is thought that these spiders became faster because they spent a long time chasing their prey. In addition, it seems that the more evolutionarily recent a species was, the greater the variation in running speed.
In their paper, the research team stated, 'The macroscopic evolutionary patterns in running ability reflect not only variations in body size, but also size-appropriate leg morphology, ecological differentiation, and phylogenetic history.'
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