Cave-dwelling orb spiders have adapted their webs so they act as tripwires for prey that crawl on the walls of the caves ...

Cribellate silks were used by early spiders and was the original specialized prey-catching silk. Sticky silk is a more recent evolutionary innovation. Sheet-building and net-casting spiders make ...

They are constructed as a sheet of closely woven silk but can have looser threads. There are typically silk trip-lines that ...

and that each species of spider makes a unique silk. For this experiment, the desired silk is “beta sheets” which the video explains are hard and strong. Some of the points mentioned in the ...

While spider silk proteins are something you can make in your garage, making useful drag line fibers has proved a daunting challenge. Now, a team of scientists from Japan and Hong Kong are closer ...

Living low down among grass, brambles, gorse or heather, the labyrinth spider typically spins a large sheet of closely woven silk that extends from a long tubular retreat at the rear. Despite their ...

Most spiders use silk to wrap their eggs. Another common use for silk is ... British spider webs can be grouped into seven broad types based on their architecture: orb, sheet, tangle, funnel, lace, ...

he was smart to try to mimic spider silk. After all, the real stuff is pound for pound, stronger than steel. He also seems to have improved upon it, using what looks to be carbon nanotubes to ...

Japan-based biochemist Ali Malay has long questioned traditional theories about how spiders make their silk. “The prevailing hypotheses seemed like magic, because, according to it, you suddenly ...

View Full Profile. Learn about our Editorial Policies. Researchers don’t know enough about spider silk structure and composition to understand why it possesses such superior mechanical properties. For ...