Flashback alert: almost 20 years ago, scientists at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama tested how well drugged house spiders could spin their webs. Not well, it turns out. They dosed the arachnids with marijuana, Benzedrine (an amphetamine), caffeine, and chlorate hydrate (a sedative). “The more toxic the chemical, the more deformed a web looks in comparison with a normal web,” wrote the researchers. In honour of Halloween, here’s six more strange-but-true trivia factoids about spiderwebs and the eight-legged critters that spin them.
1) Spiders design their webs in patterns that are meant to attract prey. There’s a trade-off to this strategy: the patterns also draw the attention of spider predators.
2) Accidentally trash a spider’s web? Don’t feel bad. Well, don’t feel that bad. Many spiders rebuild their webs every day.
3) You’ve probably heard that spider silk has the same tensile strength as steel. Wowza! But did you know that baby spiders (a.k.a. spiderlings—aww) make their own “sails” out of silk? They use strands of silk to help them disperse after hatching. Jumping from a high point, and floating through the air, allows them to travel farther. It’s called “ballooning.”
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4) Fiction’s most famous spider—Charlotte, from Charlotte’s Web—was based on an orb-weaver spider, a species known for spinning beautifully symmetrical webs.
5) Some female spiders will leave empty egg sacs (also made from silk) in their webs to act as decoys. This can trick predators into thinking that the web has been abandoned.
6) A spider’s silk is produced as a liquid. It turns into a solid as it hardens outside of the spider’s body.
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