When travelling down a sand dune, the Saharan rolling spider (Araneus rota) is capable of rolling on its outstretched legs, achieving speeds of over 4 mph. It looks "like a small, unusually fast tumbleweed."- via spiegel
Nice to see how big (or small) this spider is- My main problem with these nature documentaries is that they more than often show us the most wonderful animals without scale or size-reference. And so you see ants and spiders in close-up with as endresult that I wake up middle of the night screaming because I dream of car-size ants and spiders... :shock:
I don't mean to discount the neatness of this, which is secure, but the german narrator comments that the spider stands as disproof of the statement that the wheel does not instantiate in nature, and if it's rolling like a ball, other instances come to mind: spherical seedpods 'designed' to roll away from parent trees, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if another reader can think of a true wheel in nature as well. The biochemical mechanism of the flagella 'hub' comes to mind as an iffy candidate.
reminds me of a wacky wall crawler
...Nice little spider with wonderful abilty! ;-)
I don't mean to discount the neatness of this, which is secure, but the german narrator comments that the spider stands as disproof of the statement that the wheel does not instantiate in nature, and if it's rolling like a ball, other instances come to mind: spherical seedpods 'designed' to roll away from parent trees, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if another reader can think of a true wheel in nature as well. The biochemical mechanism of the flagella 'hub' comes to mind as an iffy candidate.