How an orb-spinning spider spins a web?

#globalite Sastha finds out how spiders spin webs.  Watch the video at the end – very cool! #scifriday

I have always wondered how the spiders create a web. Yesterday, I came across a Giant Wood Spider or Golden Silk Orb-weaver in the far corner of our yard (the featured picture). Did a small research on the “interwebs” and found all these details.

Spiders use silk to capture their food in a variety of ways ranging from the simple trip wires used by the large bird-eating spiders to the complicated and beautiful webs spun by the orb spiders.

It does not take a long time for the spider to create a web. Most spiders do their web-building at night, so you don’t often see one in action. An orb-weaver takes between 30 to 60 minutes to create an intricate web. Spiders only abandon webs when they face serious threats.

The orb-spinners’ web can measure up to 18 feet and 9 inches. They do their repair in the nights and replace every few days. They are also known to eat the web and recycle it again.

Now, how a spider builds a web:

Step 1: The spider releases a length of thread into the wind.

Step 2: If the spider feels that the thread has caught onto something, it clinches up the silk and attaches it to its starting point.

Step 3: The spider walks across the bridge thread, releasing a looser thread below it.

Step 4: The spider climbs to the center of the loose thread and lowers itself down on a vertical thread to form a Y-shape.

Step 5: The spider lays more frame threads between various anchor points as it walks along the structural threads.

Step 6: The spider lays out radius threads from the center of the web to the frames.

Step 7: The spider lays more non-stick silk to form an auxillary spiral, extending from the center of the web to the outer edge of the web.

Step 8: The spider spirals inward, laying out sticky thread and using the auxillary spiral as a reference.

Step 9: The result is a web with non-sticky radius threads, for getting around, and a sticky spiral for catching bugs.

Watch it in action! Really cool how they “knit” the web!