Spiders' Silk

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Archie_tect

De Skieven Architek... aka Penfold + Horace
Location
Northumberland
Watching a spider the other day in an idle moment set me thinking how they produce all that 'silk' for webs. Must need a vast amount of the basic ingredients to store such an incredible amount in their abdomens

I know it's produced as a combination of chemicals but with it being needed all day every day how come the spider never runs out or does it cut out production when food stocks are low.... but then it hasn't the means to catch more food- Catch 22.

Plus it would be awkward to run dry at a critical moment hanging by a thread!
 

Spinney

Bimbleur extraordinaire
Location
Back up north
Watching a spider the other day in an idle moment set me thinking how they produce all that 'silk' for webs. Must need a vast amount of the basic ingredients to store such an incredible amount in their abdomens

I know it's produced as a combination of chemicals but with it being needed all day every day how come the spider never runs out or does it cut out production when food stocks are low.... but then it hasn't the means to catch more food- Catch 22.

Plus it would be awkward to run dry at a critical moment hanging by a thread!

Don't they eat their old webs?

<wanders off to google...>


Yup - see penultimate paragraph under 'Silk Production'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_web#Silk_production
 
OP
OP
Archie_tect

Archie_tect

De Skieven Architek... aka Penfold + Horace
Location
Northumberland
Thanks Spinney... I can appreciate from the web page that eating the old ones replenishes the proteins but it still boggles me that they can produce so much silk in such a short period, and to such different specifications!
 

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
Thanks Spinney... I can appreciate from the web page that eating the old ones replenishes the proteins but it still boggles me that they can produce so much silk in such a short period, and to such different specifications!

Oh, surely you've had a bad cold? How does your nose hold so much snot? It's not like your head is full of it, even if it feels that way.

Anyway, they don't spend all day spinning, generally,. they spend a lot of time waiting in their web. Bear in mind that if you could crush a web up, the threads would be so fine it would crinkle into virtually nothing. So there's not a lot of volume to generate.
 

Davidc

Guru
Location
Somerset UK
Thanks Spinney... I can appreciate from the web page that eating the old ones replenishes the proteins but it still boggles me that they can produce so much silk in such a short period, and to such different specifications!
If a spider ate the web page you wouldn't be able to read it.
:unsure:
 
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