What is “ballooning”?

Spiders do not have wings and cannot, technically, fly. Several types of spiders, however, can travel long distances through the air by a process called ballooning. The spiders spin long strands of silk that are caught by the wind, carrying the spiders along the currents. Spiders can travel far by this method (as far as hundreds of miles), and in some cases they can “fly” as high as 2,600 feet (800 meters). One spider was even recorded at an altitude of 15,000 feet (4,572 meters).