![]() Today, the function of stabilimenta is still a mystery.īut several hypotheses seek to explain it. Scientists first though these structures worked to stabilize the web, but the theory was disproved after they found that the patterns were only loosely knitted intro the web’s fabric. They weave throughout their webs stripes of thickly banded silk called stabilimenta. Some of these spiders make an effort to decorate it too. Orb-weaving spiders don’t just construct their homes from silk. Muhammad Mahdi Karim via Wikimedia Commons under GFDLv1.2 As Home DécorĪn orb-weaver spider found in the Uluguru Mountains in Tanzania spins a web embellished with dense stripes of silk. Spiders can sense electric fields with the hairs on their legs, so they may lift a limb to survey the atmospheric conditions before executing a great escape. Like charges repel, so the force pushes the silk off the ground to help the spider take flight. Spider silk is negatively charged, similar to the surface of the Earth that’s negatively charged up by the 40,000 daily thunderstorms around the world. It doesn’t always need favorable winds to kite off (breezes are better than gusts), but instead relies on electrostatic repulsion to generate most of the lift. When a spider balloons, it literally tiptoes and hoists its abdomen towards the skies. Not all spiders balloon to travel extreme distances-some rely on it to flee from predators or cover short lengths without expending much energy. Spiders have been found in the middle of the ocean, hitching a ride on the jet stream and on remote islands hundreds of miles from the mainland. Now a well-known phenomenon, ballooning occurs when spiders stream their silk into the air, catching the winds like a sail for loft. Rather, they had travelled there in the aftermath of the eruption-by ballooning. These spiders weren’t on the newborn island because they survived the blast. Three months later, visiting scientists were surprised to find one lifeform present in the region: microscopic spiders. In 1883, the Krakatoa volcano in present-day Indonesia erupted with the force of over 10,000 hydrogen bombs, obliterating most of the island and converting it into a lifeless wasteland. Then the victorious spider bundles up its prey and kills it. This net-casting hunter can catch prey wandering beneath or even flying in mid-air, like a lacrosse player captures a ball. Once an insect wanders by, it snaps up its prey using its web as a net. It weaves a web between its four front legs, holds the creation wide open while hanging upside down and waits. The ogre-faced spider ( Deinopis) spins a web as a snare, but deploys it in an unusual way. After the ant is all trundled up, the spider goes in for the kill by chomping the ant at the base of the antennae. When the wall spider ( Oecobius) gets an ant alone, it runs circles around its victim, all the while churning out a silk cord and wrapping the ant from a safe distance. ![]() Most spiders avoid ants because they are often predatory themselves, but one family of spiders treats ants as chow. To catch their next meal, spiders may use their silk as nets-or as lassos, whips, binds, disguises, fishing lines and lures. Silk as a passive web for bugs to fly into may be the least interesting spider hunting method of all. Here are some bizarre ways spiders use their silk beyond the static webs they employ to snag their prey. All spiders produce silk ( some spiders can produce several different kinds), but not necessarily as webs like those depicted in Halloween decorations. Spider silk is made of a blend of different proteins linked together into a chain, produced by special glands call spinnerets on the spider’s rear end. “I don't think people would believe you if you told them, there’s this creature that, if you scaled it up … to the size of the human, it could catch an aeroplane with the material that it makes itself out of itself,” says Fritz Vollrath, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford. Scientists have used silk to make bulletproof armor, violin strings, medical bandages, optical fiber cables and even extravagant clothing. ![]() Spider silk is a wonder material that, weight for weight, is stronger than steel, tougher than Kevlar and can be more elastic than rubber. ![]()
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