IT IS that time of the year for spring-cleaning your home, ahead of the Chinese New Year festivities. If you have spiders living rent-free in your home, you would have to brush away those pesky cobwebs ever so often. Spider silk, which is strong and flexible, is said to be stronger than steel. But is it true that there are different kinds of spider silk?
VERDICT:
TRUE
Yes, some species of spiders are able to spin different kinds of spider silk. They serve different purposes, as some are sticky, while others are stronger or more flexible and stretchy.
A web may be made up of a few different kinds of silk.
Besides making webs out of silk (though not all spiders have webs), a spider can also use its silk for other things like transportation (soaring through the air on a strand of silk) or shelter and protection.
Male spiders of some species gift-wrap food items in silk, before offering them to females in an attempt to woo them. Some males have been observed to present “cheat” gifts like rocks or nutritionally-worthless meal leftovers wrapped in extra silk, to mask the contents. Sneaky, sneaky!
References:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/spiderwebs-explained
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-is-spider-silk-so-str/
