What If You Get into the Biggest Spider Web in the World

What If You Get into the Biggest Spider Web in the World

I don't mean to bug you but spider silk is one of the most durable natural materials on the planet kevlar of which body armor is made is weaker than the stuff spiders produce inside their bodies it's hard to believe because if you've ever touched the spider web you realize you can easily break it that's because spiders secrete a very thin layer of silk most metals would break in no time as well at such thickness the good news is that there are no huge spiders on our planet which means you can't get stuck in their trap the bad news is that if thousands of spiders with the strongest silk in the world join together and weave a single big web well you're in trouble the most durable silk belongs to darwin's bark spider its silk is twice as strong as that of other species the spider is much smaller than most of its kit but this doesn't prevent it from being one of the most formidable predators in the world the area of its web reaches 30 square feet and it's suspended over rivers on incredibly long lines the female spider shoots a stream of silk which is caught by winds above the moving waters and carried to the other bank where it attaches itself to a tree or a bush the distance could easily be over 80 feet you can find this natural wonder only in the tropical jungles of madagascar imagine that several hundred darwin's barked spiders spun a thick web over a river you're going downstream in a kayak at the same time from a distance you don't notice the huge trap and when you finally do it's too late you get caught in the silk the kayak goes out from under you you hang in the air thousands of web strands vibrate and give the spiders a signal that their dinner is here you don't have a dagger or a machete to cut yourself free the first thing you need to do is save your strength and energy the more you resist the more entangled you get the fact is that the spider's web is sticky the more you move the more glue gets on you slowing down your movement by the way there is a group of the triple eight spiders whose web is completely dry but the threads are surrounded by clouds of ultrasound fill if the prey begins to move these clouds come together and become stronger entangling the insect even harder when insects get caught in a spider's web spiders especially small species don't immediately run up to the prey they are waiting for it to lose all strength to resist after that spiders carefully approach the dinner and spit out digestive liquid with venom which means that the digestion process begins not inside but outside the spider then the hunter wraps the body of the insect with silk to form a cocoon inside which the prey is digested after that the spider drinks back its digestive fluid with the food the process can be repeated several times well let's hear it for recycling now back to you stuck in a big web you realize all these terrible events that are about to happen and your brain begins to work as quickly as possible from all sides hundreds of small spiders are running towards you looking forward to their meal your time is running out but then a solution strikes you you wriggle out of your clothes and fall into the river yeah you're almost naked in the jungle of madagascar but it's much better than becoming a dinner for spiders you're watching as the arachnids climb up on your clothes and wrap it in a cocoon now about those piranhas just kidding some spiders use a strong venom that penetrates the insect's body and dissolves it from inside but the worst fate awaits an insect that gets caught in the philippineella vesina spider territory these spiders don't have venom at all when a small insect gets into their web the hunter quickly runs up to the prey twists it pulls the silk out with its hind legs and wraps the insect in it the spider spends a lot of silk up to 460 feet that's twice the length of a passenger bowing the spider turns its prey 28 000 times during the wrapping the insect is literally squeezed under such pressure after this the spider secretes digestive fluid inside this cocoon and well you get it yeah dinner is served the web serves not only as a trap for insects it's the eyes and ears of spiders nearly all spiders have weak eyesight despite having six or eight eyes we humans can immediately see if a little fly is caught in the web but the spider doesn't know this it touches the strands of the web with its eight legs and feels for vibrations that tell it where the prey is or where the web is damaged also the smallest silk vibrations tell the spider about the humidity of the air or the presence of wind the spider can distinguish the slightest change in the structure of the web like a musician who hears an instrument is out of tune or doesn't hit the right notes i said nearly all spiders don't see well because some species can't see much better than humans one of them is a jumping spider their vision allows them to see colors that people can't but this spider is also interesting because it doesn't weave a web for hunting it sits and waits for its prey when a fly or beetle lands on a flower nearby the jumping spider leaps at it and bites it with its sharp fangs this small predator can jump up to 50 times the length of his body it uses silk as an insurance cable to soften the fall avoid falling on the ground or return to the original position if it couldn't catch the prey but you should not be afraid of them because jumping spiders are actually cute and many people even keep them at home as pets some species of spiders use silk to travel long distances they shoot strands of it like one famous superhero and use them for climbing others use wind instead their silk is so light that the wind blows it away with the spider you could say such spiders can fly and then there are wolf spiders they don't jump or weave instead they run after their prey making them the sprinters of the spider world unlike jumping spiders wolves are bigger and look quite scary when they catch up with their prey they inject it with venom but the worst thing is that these spiders have adapted to live in any conditions from cold mountain peaks to hot deserts and rain forests people who fear and hate spiders should remember that these creatures control the insect population without spiders the number of insects will increase dramatically and all agriculture will be threatened wheat corn vegetables and fruit may disappear resulting in a global food crisis remember this when you want to hit a spider with a slipper there are about 45 000 known species of spiders that live all over the world but some scientists believe there are twice as many species that we don't know anything about yet.

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