Cosmic Critters: The Spiders Who Spun Webs in Space

In this out-of-this-world episode of Wildly Curious, Katy Reiss and Laura Fawks Lapole unravel the story of two unexpected astronauts: Anita and Arabella, the garden spiders launched aboard Skylab 3 in 1973.

🕸️ Can spiders spin webs in zero gravity?
 🕷️ How do they adapt without gravity to guide them?
 🛰️ What can eight-legged astronauts teach us about behavior and resilience in space?

Anita and Arabella weren’t just part of a quirky science experiment—they were pioneers in understanding how instinctual behavior and motor coordination function in microgravity. From chaotic silk chaos to stunning symmetrical webs in just two days, these space spiders proved life can adapt in the most alien environments.

Whether you're an arachnid enthusiast, a space nerd, or just love weird science history, this episode is for you.

Transcript

Laura: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Wildly Curious, a podcast that tells you everything you need to know about nature, and probably more than you wanted to know. I'm Laura.

Katy: and this is week five of Cosmic Critters, of things that humans have launched into space. So, we have this one, and then we have one more Cosmic Critters, um, of the mini series for this season. So today, I'm going we've talked about okay, hold on a minute, let me see if I can do this, hold on.

We talked about a dog, a cat, so Laika the dog. Felicity the cat. Then we went to frogs, Pierre and T Nom. And then we went last week to Albert 1, 2, 3, and 4. And so, then this week, we're gonna talk about garden spiders, Anita and Arabella.

Laura: just gonna say, they'd better have freaking names.

Katy: Yep, Anita and Arabella.

Laura: is a perfect name for a spider.

Katy: It is. It is. So again, like everything else that we've launched into space, scientists started to be like, well, like what else, how else would this thing react? How else would this thing react? [00:01:00] So because of all of this curiosity behind weightlessness, different new environment.

Everything works differently. They knew that, but they didn't know, like, how things would react. So that also included the curiosity behind the behavior of life forms from frogs to dogs, like we talked about. And in 1973, we launched two garden spiders, Anita and Arabella. 

Laura: also the 70s, man. This is the frogs and the spiders in the 70s? Not

Katy: right? Right?

So, these two spiders hitched a ride to orbit aboard Skylab 3. For science purposes, their mission was to help scientists answer a simple But, curiosity question, can spiders spin webs in space? Okay, which again, is I get everything else that we've launched into space, where it's let's study the ear, the ear effects, the respiratory, let's study this.

I feel like at this point they were just like, it was somebody just trying to get grant

Laura: Or not

Katy: You know what I mean?

Laura: they just wanted to know. Like, this was 

Katy: I wonder if they 

Laura: other than, we just want to know.

Katy: I wonder. [00:02:00] Yeah, I wonder. It's 1973, we've already been on the moon, they're like, they probably hit a 

Laura: like, yeah, somebody's high, thinking about, what could be, you

Katy: Yeah, like on a really bad trip. Yeah, do you, do you think, yeah, do you think, yeah. At first glance, spiders might seem like an odd choice for a space mission. But, for the most part, they were pretty good for studying the effects of microgravity on instinctual behaviors. So,

Laura: be fascinating to watch.

Katy: would be, it would be, but it,

Laura: How do you make something when it's hard to anchor yourself?

Katy: Right? So, web spinning is an intricate and highly precise task. It's not just, haphazard. I mean, spiders do not

Laura: Well, and especially with garden spiders, which are a type of, like, orb weaver, which makes a very specific pattern.

Katy: yes, it's very, very intricate. And it also requires great coordination, timing, and the use of gravity for orientation so they could figure out where they are and everything.

Laura: yeah.

Katy: [00:03:00] So garden spiders, like Anita and Arabella, were chosen for the experiment because, like Laura said, their web spinning is very well documented on Earth. It is intricate, so it's not just like, I don't know,

Laura: It's the spider web that you picture in your head, right? Like, it makes the circle with circle, the circle with circle, the circle with circle. Like, there are some spiders that build, you know, the funnels, or just like a

Katy: yeah, or, yeah, like erratic ones, yeah.

Laura: like, classic spider.

Katy: Classic spiderweb, yeah. So before the cosmic adventure, Anita and Arabella were raised in a controlled environment to ensure that they were healthy and active web spinners. Their travel accommodations? A specialized enclosure aboard Skylab equipped with cameras, a light source, and tons and tons of flies,

Laura: Dude, so far these ones are like living the life.

Katy: Right? They're

Laura: been raised to be at the height of spider health. And then they're traveling in a special case with all the food they want. The poor frogs who were launched like two years before are probably like, WTF?

Katy: [00:04:00] right? Yeah, the nerve severed and everything. Like, these guys get the life. So their space habitat ensured that they had literally everything needed to attempt web spinning in zero gravity. So Anita and Arabella were launched into space aboard Skylab 3 on July 28th, 1973, alongside astronauts Alan Bean, Jack Luzma, and Owen Garriott.

The spiders quickly became beloved members of the crew earning the astronauts curiosity and respect again because probably nobody wanted to touch them So when the experiments began the results were Fairly messy so without gravity anita and arabella struggled to orient themselves And their first attempts at spinning webs were chaotic and irregular which again, like we said is not like this species of spider at all.

So on Earth, gravity helps spiders determine where to anchor their silk and how to space their threads. In space, those cues are missing, leaving the spiders to figure things out through trial and error.

Laura: like, I'm sure they're jumping. They need gravity to go to the [00:05:00] next place. 

Katy: Mm hmm.

Laura: out they needed to like push

Katy: A lot. Yes, there is a lot that they need to figure out. But soon after, Anita and Arabella did begin to adapt. By the second day,

Laura: Day two

Katy: Yeah, they were spinning more symmetrical webs, proving that spiders could adjust to microgravity.

Laura: within 24 hours

Katy: Yep. Yep. So their ability to compensate showed an incredible level of behavioral which is basically innate ability to adapt to very unfamiliar environments.

The webs themselves were slightly different than those spun on Earth. In microgravity, the silk was thinner and more tightly woven, likely due to the changes in how the spiders moved and managed tension in zero gravity. Because again, it's the tension of the, silks itself ended up being very different too.

So these observations gave scientists new insights into the role of gravity in animal behavior and motor coordination. As groundbreaking as the experiment [00:06:00] was, it wasn't without its challenges. Both spiders faced stress, the stresses of space travel, and despite the care of the astronauts, they didn't live again to see Earth.

However, their contributions were kind of invaluable, and the data collected from their webs and behavior provided a unique perspective on how organisms adapt to life beyond Earth.

So, the Anita and Arabella experiments wasn't just about spider spinning webs. It symbolized a much bigger, effort to understand the resilience of life in space and just facing unknowns as far as instincts and how animals and people, maybe people could later on adapt.

So their experiment also paved the way for future studies on how microgravity affects other species and systems from plants to humans. And it highlighted the importance of testing a wide variety of life forms in space to fully understand the challenges of long term space exploration.

Laura: that's amazing. I mean,

Katy: yeah. So need an Arabella.

Laura: just love to watch them and

Katy: And I think that was for the scientists part of it it was just fun for them 

Laura: I'm just gonna go [00:07:00] watch the spiders, you know.

Katy: Yeah, might as well might as well All right, guys, so we have a another full length episode next week and then the week after that we have one more cosmic critters So yeah, make sure you guys go check us out on YouTube and support us on patreon So we can keep bringing you this content and so next week.

We will see you guys later.

Laura: Bye everybody.