Web Building

Perhaps the most well-known feature of spiders is their ability to build webs. This has been developed into an art form by the orb-weavers. Webs are not always built vertically but also horizontally and ever angle in between, sometimes in several layers covered with a protective tent-like roof of silk.

Some comb-footed spiders, like the Grey House Spider construct "tangle webs" in corners, made up of a mass of strands reaching to the ground. While they appear random, there is method to these webs - the strong dry threads enable the spider to move in any direction. "Sheet webs", made by species such as the Comb-footed Platform Spider, comprise a thick, messy sheet of silk draped amongst foliage or in tree hollows. A number of spiders build a type of orb web which is not a complete circle and is supported by a mass of untidy strands.

Construction of an orb web is a long and precise process. To begin, the spider sits in a prominent position and plays out silk from the spinnerets, to be carried away by the slightest breeze until the end attaches to a solid object. The spider then pulls the strand tight and drops downwards, often to the ground, to attach the framework at the base. When the frame is in place, the spider constructs between 20 and 60 spokes, radiating out from the centre, around which the sticky spiral is spun. The spiral is the catching area of the web and takes the longest to build. As each thread is attached, the spider uses its hindleg to pull the thread taut, breaking up the sticky coating into tiny globules like beads on a necklace.

An orb-weaving spider may produce more than 20 meters of silk to build a web. The hub of a spider, where the spider usually sits, is built closer to the top than the bottom. Because it takes the spider longer to run uphill than down once prey has been trapped.