FICT: DNA Test—A Wingless Spider ‘Flies’ From Harare to the Indian Ocean

Our positioning gadgets showed that we were 942 nautical miles east of Antananarivo, the capital city of Madagascar. I was on a luxury ship called SolarTec on route to Delhi, India, for a holiday together with my lovely wife, Jane.

We sat on the deck, enjoying our lunch and looking at the open sea. The meal comprised of chicken, beef, and pork cut into equal-size cubes, crushed garlic, chopped onions, spinach, and tomatoes. It is a local dish commonly known as Romazava, considered a delicacy in Madagascar.

A wingless spider came floating in the air and landed on my wife’s plate. She jumped to her feet and said: “John, a spider!”

“This particular one is not poisonous,” I assured her, trying to calm her down. “It is called a Linyphiid spider. Come and sit down and finish your lunch.”

She shook her head, picked up a nearby chair and sat a few meters away. I was eager to find out where the spider came from, given that we were at sea, hundreds of miles from land. I picked up the spider with a napkin and covered it under a bowel.

“What are you trying to do?” asked Jane.

“I am getting my portable thermocycler to check where the spider originated,” John said.

He walked down the stairs and disappeared from view. He came back with a small box measuring one foot on all sides and unpacked the thermocycler. Its size was about ½-foot in length, width, and height. It quickly checks an insect's DNA, checks the results against web-based database and tells its origin.

John opened a side compartment, placed in the spider, closed the cover and flipped on the switch. The machine made a buzzing sound for about 30 seconds stopped. John opened a sliding door on top of the device to read results from a screen.

“My goodness, the bastard is from Harare, Zimbambe,” John exclaimed.

“What? How does a spider from Zimbambe reach here?” Jane asked. “There is something wrong with the machine.”

“The thermocycler is right 98 out of every 100 tests,” said John. "We came from Greece and had not docked anywhere, thanks to the solar-powered engines used by the SolarTec. There no way the spider came from Greece.”

“So how does it reach here?” Jane asked.

“There are e-fields in the atmosphere and around every object,” John explained. “We can’t sense these e-fields but spiders can. Spiders move upwards when they are subject e-fields, which help them to take off without being assisted by wind and remain airborne for thousands of miles.”

“I don’t believe it,” Jane exclaimed.

"Bees use a similar mechanism to communicate with other bees in the hive when they find a food source several kilometers away," John said added.

He opened the side compartment and let the spider go. John and Jane sat side by side and looked at the open sea, marveling at natures secrets.