It's been hypothesized that orb weaving spiders, like this argiope here, should have the toughest dragline silks because they must intercept flying prey.

Like the spider who eats her mate when he is no longer a necessity?

This is a predatory mite just as small as a spider mite, by the way, one millimeter, two millimeters long, not more than that, running quickly, hunting, chasing the spider mites.

But how about variation among spider species, so looking at one type of silk and looking at different species of spiders?

The frame and radii of this web is made up of one type of silk, while the capture spiral is a composite of two different silks the filament and the sticky droplet.

How does an individual spider make so many kinds of silk?

Spider

You Spider!

It's a spider.

Spiders?

Spiders use silk for many purposes, including the trailing safety dragline, wrapping eggs for reproduction, protective retreats and catching prey.

Some of them are orb weaving spiders and some of them are non orb weaving spiders.

Scytodes doesn't use a web at all to catch prey.

Spider

A cobweb.

These are spinneret glands on the abdomen of a spider.

Most spiders use copious amounts of silk, and silk is essential to their survival and reproduction.

It doesn't take long from working with spiders to start noticing how essential silk is to just about every aspect of their life.

There's quite a bit of variation within the fibers that an individual spider can make.

Spider

The Spider of Finance

I'm afraid of spiders.

Roundup?

Most spiders use copious amounts of silk, and silk is essential to their survival and reproduction.

Just pretend you're a janitor. Janitors are never terrified.

Tom hates spiders.

I'm really scared of spiders.

I hate cobwebs.

Means spider !

There are two orders of magnitude more spiders than primates.

So silk comes out of the spinnerets, and for those of us spider silk biologists, this is what we call the business end of the spider.

So this means that both spiders and spider silk have been around for 380 million years.

Spider Three Decks

Spiderette

Penguin Spider

Spiders like to build spiderwebs.

Vista styled spider layout

It looks like a spider.

This is a picture of the spinnerets coming out of a spider and the silk being formed from a spider. Isn't that beautiful?

To borrow from the writings of a spider named Charlotte, silk is terrific.

When you look at this orb web, you're actually seeing many types of silk fibers.

In addition to these biomimetic applications of spider silks, personally, I find studying spider silks just fascinating in and of itself.

Spiders are also extremely old.

Spider implementation

There are many kinds of spider silk.