Tests by Skylab Spiders Hint Man’s Adaptability
The New York Times

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ü NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1973
Teps by SkylaiftSpiders Hint Marts Adaptability1
Speda 1 to The XYork Times
RALEIGH, N. C„ Sept. 29—
Anita ^ and AraBej^SIthe
space . spiders |QHH overcame
weightlessness and spun their
webs aboard the orbiting Sky-
lab, .have, bolstered the scien-
tific’! suggestion ‘Milt .human
beings may be far. more adapt-
able to unusual experiences
than is generally’ believed.
This, is the preliminary con-
clusion of
researcher at Dorothea Dix
Hospital in kaleign, w o stüd-
ie?’ 6ehavior patterns in spi-
ders. Dr. Witt bred and raised
the two spiders and chose
them for the space flight;’, that
ended this week; •
I “ 14 a limited sense,Witt;
said, the study, of spiders ’¿an
be applied to human beings
since there are some things
that are < common to all ani-
mals. .
From, the.- performance, of
the spiders “at; a level higher
than expected. Dr. Witt con-
■HI
‘< that now we can
expeeff ij it |Sany noiintellec-
fcual iiinfii.ons in animals, in-
cluding human beings, are far
more adaptable and able to be
reprogramed and! reorganized
than we ever thought them to
ibeS’ii.,
– “We
tions at a nonintellectual, non-
conscious level that have? never
been experienced in the history
ofiiying beingb#’iff
Two Questions: Posed
weight id gravi y are crucial
to the weavihg oí a web, what
does a spider do in weightless-
ness? How does a living being
react to a stressful and. very
unexpected, unprepared-fbr sit-
uation? -?f’ ‘rífe;
Dr. Witt was surprised that
the spiders learned to weave
their webs in outer space.
“I think it is most surprising
because it took a readjustment
of everything they have known
before i their behavior,” he
said. ..’ .¿.’iSfKl..
“If you think about the_ as-j
tronauts, how they adapted,”
he said, “they did it ají by
planning, by reading books, by
making calculations, by having
done it from previous flights.
None of this is true for the
spiders. They had to do it in
what you might call the instinc-
tive way.,
“So, if we say that- they are
very much less adaptable than
humans, and do not have the
ability of forethought and
planning, then we would expect
that they Would be completely
helpless,” he said. “But it took,
just two days to get over it
and manage to. spin their
webs.” I
; ; Second Spider Dies
HOUSTON, Sept 29 (Reu-
ters)—Arabella, the last sur-
viving member of an animal
collection aboard the Skylab
space station, was found dead
last night in her cage at Mar-
shall. Space Flight ’ Center,
Huntsville, Ala., the National
Space and Aeronautics Admin-
istration said here today.