Watch For Spiders Floating On The Wind In Utah

I am not a fan of spiders. They creep me out. When I see a black widow chilling on a web in my backyard, my basic fight or flight response kicks in I turn into a raging soldier filled with blood lust and bent on destruction.

So, you can imagine how I felt walking my dog in Southern Utah when I spotted a spider flying through the air on a web. Even worse, my wife pointed it out and it was right behind me and in my face when I turned around.

It is called ballooning and it is pretty dang cool if it is not zooming past my noggin while I am quietly walking on a sidewalk.  Here is National Geographic describing the process:

Luckily these spiders usually small, not like this disgusting camel spider I found in my car one day.

The one I saw had a string of web going to a ball about the size of a quarter and it was floating along in the middle of the street. It was moving at a leisurely pace as there wasn't much wind. It was also well after dark so that the web glowed in the street light.

I didn't spend a lot of time examining it, because, like I said, spiders creep me out. There are things that shouldn't fly, like the monkeys in "The Wizard of Oz." The Israelites in the Old Testament had to deal with flying serpents. Apparently, my curse is flying spiders.

Keep your eye out for these little critters floating through the sky here in Southern Utah. It may explain where those webs come from that hit you in the face when you walk out your door.