The most interesting thing about the web

The secret of spider glands, frozen in the thinnest of threads – this is the web. To weave her know, mainly arachnids. It consists of a protein composition resembling silk, and use the web to hunt for insects. The question immediately arises, why it will never stick themselves, weaving her spiders? The answer is simple: the spider has special hairs on the legs, which greatly reduce the area of contact of the pads with sticky stuff on the web, and they are covered with a substance that reduces the stickiness of the adhesive. And as soon as the spider will put his paw on a string of web, the glue gets on the hairs, then sliding off it, it is an insect to move.

Did you know that ordinary web versions of most natural and artificial materials. Similar in strength to only glass and nylon and steel is a bit not up to this ambitious target. According to calculations made by scientists, the web thickness of a pencil can stop a Boeing in flight. And if you want to weigh the web, in which it is possible to wrap the entire globe at the equator, its weight would have reached only 340 g. unfortunately, so far the science has not been able to recreate the web in the laboratory.





The biggest web, namely a diameter of 8 meters, and spins a small spider native to Africa and Madagascar. If the web is contaminated by pollen from flowers and it must be renewed, the spider just eats it, leaving just the main thread. And then weaving new. And this spider as araneus, common in our latitudes, is distinguished by its profound knowledge in mathematics. How else to explain the fact that he is always with great precision over and over again repeats the formula of its own web. Lovchuju a network of female garden spider always has a radius equal to 39, 1245 nodes and 39 of curls that connects the spiral and radii. Thread spider crporate perfectly round and can be stretched 40% before it stopped. For comparison, the same steel stretched only 8% and nylon – up to 20%. Spiders bokachoda invented the web another interesting application. They move it through the air, like a parachute in a rather large distance. Maybe you saw a picture of when during the Indian summer everywhere could be seen small strands flying in the wind. Incidentally, such a web is used by spiders not for travel, for the safety of their offspring. The female spider weaves a pouch for the eggs and travel.

Source: mif-facts.com.ua