A new study has unraveled the mystery behind how spiders manage to traverse long distances and what leads them to colonize at a rapid pace in new areas. The study has helped the researchers understand that spiders travel across water using their legs as sails and their silk as an anchor.

Findings of the study have been published in BMC Evolutionary Biology. A technique called 'ballooning' is also used by spiders to fly. The ballooning technique involves a spider to use their silk to catch the wind and help them rise into the air. All that ballooning spiders need to move up to 30km per day is right wind conditions.

The technique is not risk free as an airborne spider does not have good control over its direction. As a result, spiders sometimes land on water, which could reduce its chances to survive the journey.

Lead author Morito Hayashi of the Natural History Museum, London, said spiders manage to travel across water as well by actively adopting postures that allow them to use the wind direction to gain control over their journey across water.

They are also capable of dropping silk and stopping on water surface whenever they require. This helps spiders negate the lethal effects of landing on water after the uncontrolled flights.

"The ability of individuals capable of long-distance aerial dispersal to survive encounters with water allows them to disperse repeatedly, thereby increasing the pace and spatial scale over which they can spread and subsequently exert an influence on the ecosystems into which they migrate", said Hayashi.