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[Gaborn]

Species: Caerostris darwini
Habitat: Madagascar, alarming arachnophobes and mayflies in equal measure

The spider attaches a line of silk to the tree branch she is standing on, by the side of a river, and bungee-jumps into space. Dangling in mid-air, she begins spewing out silk. And more silk. And still more silk.

Eventually she has released more than 25 metres of continuous strands, which drift away downwind, across the river. Suddenly she stops, and begins reeling the line back in. It pulls taut. Success! The other end has tangled itself in a bush on the far bank.

This is the first step in the construction of the world's biggest spider web, which will hang above a tropical river. Perched in the centre of her vast web, the Darwin's bark spider can feast on huge numbers of insects after they emerge from the water.

Silk architect

The Darwin's bark spider was discovered in Madagascar only last year, by Matjaž Kuntner of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana and Ingi Agnarsson of the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan. With Kuntner's colleague Matjaž Gregorič and Todd Blackledge of the University of Akron in Ohio, they have carried out more field studies to find out how the spiders build their webs and what they are for.

The Darwin's bark has a built-in advantage. Its silk is the toughest of any spider, which is particularly remarkable as spider silks are tough anyway, and stronger than many artificial substances.

The river-spanning lines of silk are the longest section of the web. The spider's method of building them – trailing silk into the open air and hoping for the best – is similar to the common spider trick of "ballooning". Spiders who want to travel long distances release long strands of silk that act like kites and pull the spiders into the air. Ballooning is found in most species of spider, suggesting it has an ancient evolutionary origin – the bridging lines may have developed from it.

Once the bridging line is in place, the spider walks out along it and reinforces both ends. Then she adds one vertical thread beneath the bridging line, forming a "T" shape. This vertical thread becomes the basis for the web proper, a classic orb web that can have an area of 2.7 square metres.

Web of mystery

So what does this huge net catch? Kuntner and colleagues staked out 46 webs and found that most of the prey was small insects like beetles, damselflies, dragonflies and wasps.

In a separate paper, Blackledge has shown that female orb-web spiders rely on occasionally capturing exceptionally big animals. These supply a huge amount of food in one go, so the spiders have plenty of energy to devote to laying eggs.

There was no sign of the Darwin's bark spiders catching big game, though. The researchers tested what the webs could catch in the most direct way possible: by lobbing different prey animals at them from half a metre away. Nothing bigger than a dragonfly got stuck: larger insects and frogs all got clean away.

It may be that the spiders get big meals by catching insects like mayflies in bulk when they emerge from the river. The alternative is that the team just didn't watch them for long enough to see them catch anything big. "We aren't yet sure if C. darwini is a really neat exception to most orb spiders, or if we simply don't know enough about what they eat," Blackledge says.

Journal references: Journal of Arachnology, DOIs: 10.1636/cb10-95.1 and 10.1636/chi10-52.1; PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0026847

Story Here

Video of it at the link.

 

[Holmes]

I didn't think I would care about a video of a spider making a spider web, but I was kinda disappointed when it ended...

 

[Meus Renaissance]

I had a cold shiver run down my back.

 

[Escape Goat]

Kill it with fire. Lots of it.

 

[Clydefrog]

Wow, amazing. Spiders have such an advantage against... everything.

 

[strafer]

duuuude

 

[Escape Goat]

Wow, amazing. Spiders have such an advantage against... everything.

lol

i did that the other day. had some kind of silk web in my face and i was acting calm but inside i was in total terror.

 

[DrFunk]

Imagine walking into that web late at night

 

[Kaako]

Do yo thang lil homie, keep spittin em silk from yo spinneret.

 

[Metroid Killer]

Pretty incredible work for a 2cm spider.


Oh and this is for you spider gaf:

 

[strafer]

and that is nothing compared to.

 

[Dice]

Oh and this is for you spider gaf:

Some spiders shed?

 

[Gaborn]

and that is nothing compared to.

http://media.star-telegram.com/Multimedia/News/Photos/Bigweb.jpg

Yeah, but I believe that was a colony of spiders. This is 1 spider.

 

[GasProblem]

and that is nothing compared to.

Is that a spiderweb or something caterpillars leave behind?

 

[SimleuqiR]

Imagine walking into that web late at night

Imagine walking into the toilet, and then...

 

[mollipen]

Spiders are awesome. It's a shame the reputation they seem to have.

People want to hate something? Hate wasps! Those bitches don't contribute anything, like spiders eating other pest bugs or bees pollenating and making honey. They just fly around like punks, act tough, and try to piss people off.

 

[Yami]

this thread is made of nightmares.

 

[Phonomezer]

Epic spider webs

IN EVERY TREE.

 

[sixteen-bit]

Incredible

 

[Gaborn]

Is that a spiderweb or something caterpillars leave behind?

Definitely a spider web, from a colony of spiders. Some spiders live together and essentially combine their webs and... well, that can happen.

 

[Phonomezer]

this thread is made of nightmares.

 

[Socreges]

Pretty incredible work for a 2cm spider.


Oh and this is for you spider gaf:

the fuck is going on here

 

[Dice]

the fuck is going on here

A spider is giving birth to a squid. Did you learn anything in school?

 

[alphaNoid]

Yay spider thread! SQUIRM GAF!

SQUIRM

 

[Huevos de Oro]

Imagine walking into the toilet, and then...

Walking? Imagine putting your bare ass on that thing! That spider looked mean, like it would happily chomp your anus.

 

[Dice]

Walking? Imagine putting your bare ass on that thing! That spider looked mean, like it would happily chomp your anus.

That's what the sneaky one in the back would do. The one in the front would clearly shoot flesh-rotting venom into your balls/climb into your ladyplace to lay eggs.

 

[Davedough]

Imagine walking into the toilet, and then...

I'm calling BS on this one. The spider's legs dont move at all during either the jump to the rim or to the guy's foot.

As far as the largest web.... hell yeah entrepreneur spider. Way to corner that bug market.

 

[B!TCH]

Oh hey a spider thread, let's see what weaksauce spider pictures GAF will fail to shock me with this time...

Pretty incredible work for a 2cm spider.


Oh and this is for you spider gaf:

woah WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!? FUCK YOU METROID KILLER! FUCK YOOOOUUU!!! *cries*

 

[Phoenician_Viking]

Spiders are awesome.

 

[Stabby McSter]

i was gonna go jerk off BUT NOT ANYMORE

 

[DonasaurusRex]

Spiders are awesome.

throw him in the fire too.

 

[Parallax Scroll]

Go web go!

 

[wenis]

i was gonna go jerk off BUT NOT ANYMORE

Christians have finally found the anti-porn weapon.

Just put ads for spiders on every porn streaming site and millions of men will cease masturbation.

 

[MiniBossBattle]

Gaborn news: Finding new ways to make my skin crawl. Actually, I think spiders are amazing creatures.

 

[Kraftwerk]

 

[brotkasten]

No, Spider. A friendship between us wouldn't work.

 

[wolfmat]

Web 2.0

 

[SimleuqiR]

Nature...you amaze the shit out of me sometimes.

 

[FOOTE]

I didn't think I would care about a video of a spider making a spider web, but I was kinda disappointed when it ended...

Same, I was kind of mesmerized by it.

Edit- What the fuck is happening here?

Pretty incredible work for a 2cm spider.


Oh and this is for you spider gaf:

Edit 2- Wow, I didn't know that spiders can shed. *shudder*

 

[Davedough]

 

[Chuckpebble]

Yeah, Souderton!

I think those trees are caterpillars or silk worms or something. I distinctly remember being a lad and my dad found one of those formations in the maple by our house. My dad was a little wild back then. He sent them up the smoke bomb.

 

[Davedough]

Epic spider webs

IN EVERY TREE.

That actually looks more like Gypsy Moths or something of the like.

 

[Dizzy-4U]

Edit- What the fuck is happening here?

Skin change.

 

[Cloudius12]

The river-spanning lines of silk are the longest section of the web. The spider's method of building them – trailing silk into the open air and hoping for the best – is similar to the common spider trick of "ballooning". Spiders who want to travel long distances release long strands of silk that act like kites and pull the spiders into the air. Ballooning is found in most species of spider, suggesting it has an ancient evolutionary origin – the bridging lines may have developed from it.

Amazing.

 

[Flo_Evans]

the fuck is going on here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthropod#Molting

 

[PJV3]

The worst part of being a postman was walking through all the spiderwebs at 5am, across the streets, across the doors and inbetween cars. the spiders must go crazy at night.

 

[Kurtofan]

Wow, amazing. Spiders have such an advantage against... everything.

I shriek too.

 

[McNei1y]

http://i40.tinypic.com/f1bqls.jpg

If a spider had a pack of eggs like that in my house... I'm nuking that shit from orbit.

 

[Akuun]

That's pretty cool.

Also, is it just me or does that spider actually have a trollface?

 

[The Lamonster]