Spider web construction

August 15, 2006 11:10 AM

Spider web construction gallery is a collection of diagrams of the path a spider takes when constructing it's web. The diagrams are colour coded by construction phase. [VIA MoFi's very first post.]
posted by Mitheral (24 comments total)

spiders on drugs
posted by imaswinger at 11:20 AM on August 15, 2006

Good find, Mitheral.
posted by boo_radley at 11:27 AM on August 15, 2006

Oh my, this is good fun to explore.

Thanks!
posted by fluffycreature at 11:38 AM on August 15, 2006

Excellent! I hope he keeps going. I'd really like to see a lot more.
posted by jamjam at 11:43 AM on August 15, 2006

Wicked cool!
posted by ZachsMind at 11:46 AM on August 15, 2006

Ok, this is so fucking rad! The pictures are totally cool and the text makes me wish that I had time to appreciate all things in nature at this depth (although that might get boring, I suppose).

The web Z. diodia is very finely meshed, more circular than other webs and features a particularly large hub. I had one observation (out of 33) where the lower radius was used as the exit radius for frame construction. This species is very special in the way it constructs the radii. Unlike most other araneid spiders, it incorporates a part of the provisional radius (= exit line) into the definitive radius, thus producing a definitive radius which is doubled on the outer part (where the tension in the radius is larger) and single on the inner part.
posted by OmieWise at 11:57 AM on August 15, 2006

I love this.
posted by sklero at 12:07 PM on August 15, 2006

It's a great resource for tattoo artists as well.
posted by Flashman at 12:18 PM on August 15, 2006

Good stuff, thanks.
posted by soyjoy at 12:29 PM on August 15, 2006

Speaking of spiders, one of these came into our house last night and scared the hell out of my wife. Biggest spider I've ever seen in the Vancouver area (of course, doesn't compare to those in the rest of the world).
posted by Kickstart70 at 12:57 PM on August 15, 2006

I'd like to see a film of a person doing this between two towers with lots of climbing rope.
posted by alms at 1:15 PM on August 15, 2006

Very nifty. I’ve always wondered if they dig the engineering behind it (they’d be one up on me) or it’s instinct or whathefu. I mean how many lousy designs must spiders have gone through to get this hard-wired? And where do refinements come in? That drug thing is funky too.
(I do try not to kill spiders, since they eat the other bugs. I haven’t fed one LSD yet)
posted by Smedleyman at 2:00 PM on August 15, 2006

OmieWise writes "the text makes me wish that I had time to appreciate all things in nature at this depth"

Ya, I'll never be able to pass by a spider web again without thinking about this. The Fecenia singaporiensis construction is especially insteresting.

Smedleyman writes "That drug thing is funky too.(I do try not to kill spiders, since they eat the other bugs. I haven’t fed one LSD yet)"

That's got to be a hoax, the quotes on the mental state page confirm.
posted by Mitheral at 2:28 PM on August 15, 2006

What is an stabilimentum? It sounds like it stabilizes the web, but why and how, and why some webs have them and others do not?
posted by dov3 at 2:52 PM on August 15, 2006

stabilimentum
posted by Kickstart70 at 2:58 PM on August 15, 2006

I don't think the function of stabilimentum has been completely nailed down, although there are lots of theories. I've watched a few argiope spiders around my house build and rebuild their webs with stabilimentum in different places... wonderfully interesting to watch.
posted by F Mackenzie at 3:02 PM on August 15, 2006

Oh man. Where's the time lapse? I was sure somebody would have added one in a comment. I couldn't find one, but this was cool anyway.
http://www.haworth-village.org.uk/nature/how/spider-web.asp
posted by gummo at 3:55 PM on August 15, 2006

This is so great.
posted by unknowncommand at 3:56 PM on August 15, 2006

Mitheral, I saw similar info about spiders on drugs in an old issue of Spiegel (oh, OK, it was about 10 years back). Different photos of spider webs, similar information (spiders on cocaine: overly ambitious; spiders on grass: underly ambitious; etc.) But not jokey. No joke.
posted by melixxa600 at 4:46 PM on August 15, 2006

Meh — any old garden-variety arachnid can spin a web and wait for something to fly into it. Real spiders lasso, spit, and throw nets over their prey.
posted by cenoxo at 6:41 PM on August 15, 2006

Wait for it...
.
.
.
Best of the web.

AHAHAHAHahahahahaha!!!.... heh.. :sniff:


But seriously... spiders are so damn cool. I just wish they didn't creep me out so.
posted by LordSludge at 7:27 PM on August 15, 2006

I used to have a very live-let live attitude toward spiders until I was bitten by a brown recluse. Now, not so much. Still, the webs are fascinating.

because the more toxic the chemical, the more deformed was the web.

(Looks at caffeine inspired creation)

Holy crap, don't tell the DEA or they'll be doing no-knock invasions at Starbuck's.
posted by Enron Hubbard at 6:16 AM on August 16, 2006

LordSludge writes "web."

You wouldn't believe how many hits you get when searching for dupes for a post about spider webs.
posted by Mitheral at 8:17 AM on August 16, 2006

You wouldn't believe how many hits you get when searching for dupes for a post about spider webs.

heh.
posted by dhruva at 10:21 AM on August 16, 2006