MEXICO: Generally people have heard that silk is very much strong, almost incredibly but spider silk, specially, can be both strong as well as very much thin. After studying the remarkable webs of a comm garden spider, researchers now think that they are getting closer to learn nature’s craft.
When we think of spider webs, a network of thin as well as sticky webs are likely to come to mind.
It seems very much remarkable how these threads that are micrometers thick can span great lengths and don’t break up.
A new study that is published in the journal Biology Letters, spider an spin a web so much thin that they can be measured on the nano-scale. Researchers from the Oxford University collected several adult female Uloborus lace weavers in order to find out the cause the strength of a tiny fibre.
All the data was closely analyzed from videos and photographs of the spiders in action that had been weaving dry webs to capture their prey.
Then they examined the silk-generating organs of the spiders under microscope while paying special attention to the cribellum that is an ancient organ and is not found in many spiders.
“Uloborus has unique cribellar glands, amongst the smallest silk glands of any spider, and it’s these that yield the ultra-fine catching wool of its prey capture thread,” first study author Katrin Kronenberger explained in a statement “The raw material, silk dope, is funneled through exceptionally narrow and long ducts into tiny spinning nozzles or spigots. Importantly, the silk seems to form only just before it emerges at the uniquely-shaped spigots of this spider.
