Spider does not fall because atoms hold it

2004/09/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Zoologia

Spiders stick to any surface by one of the forces that bind together, that is, by the force of Van der Waals. This force is based on interatomic electrostatic interaction and is easily understandable to occur in very small things. But, surprisingly, these forces are also resistant to spiders, even when they move upside down.

To confirm this, German and Swiss researchers have analyzed the legs of the spider Evarcha spider using electronic microscopes. They are full of small hairs and each hair is also formed by microscopic hairs.

The researchers followed the investigation with another more precise microscope, that of atomic force. This microscope, in addition to being able to see things of the size of the molecules, measures the interatomic forces. In this way they have managed to know that the force exerted by microscopic hairs, that is, the ability to stick that the spider has, is very large considering the size of the spider.