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Golden backyard beauty

Published Tuesday, September 29, 2009 3:57 PM

By Judy Watts
Summerville Journal Scene ®

Clemson studies spider silk uses

Golden orb silk weavers (Nephila clavipes) create one of the strongest – and largest – spider webs in the southeast. Webs five feet or more in diameter are common throughout the Lowcountry. Golden orbs – known by some as the banana spider because of its yellow abdomen – like coastal regions and dry wooded areas.

The intimidating but non-poisonous spider stays in its web most of the time, handing head down in the center of the underside of the web. It leaves its web only to deposit its silk-wrapped egg sack on the underside of a leaf or among twigs near the web.

The female can commonly grow to more than three inches across, while the mostly brown male is only a fraction of that size. In fact it is so small, the female seldom notices his existence as it lives on the fringes of the giant web.

The web and its super strong silk is being studied by scientists  at South Carolina’s own Clemson University who are researching the proteins the spider secretes to make the web.

Clemson researchers are hoping to create a synthetic silk with many of the same qualities as natural spider silk for use in longwearing textiles, hospital supplies like bandages and sutures and safety gear for public safety officers.

According to Clemson researchers, “spider silk is finer than human hair, is lighter than cotton, and ounce-for-ounce five time stronger than steel” with nearly limitless potential uses.

“We are using golden orb-weaving spiders to learn how to make artificial spider silk. It is tougher, ‘stretchier’ and more waterproof than silkworm silk,” says Bert Abbot, Clemson Coker Chair for Genetics. Other research has been done at Cornell University.

But the new research is not the first time humans have recognized the possible uses of the golden orb web. It has been used by people in some of the South Sea islands for generations as a bandage to stop blood flow, make bird snares, fishing lures, traps and nets. Known by some as the web of steel, the folks at Science Over the Edge (www.unmuseum.org) observe that South Sea islanders get the spiders to build fishing nets for them by setting out a circle of bamboo in the forest, a perfect habitat for the spiders. They report that by morning a spider often will have built a web across it and then it can be used for catching fish.

The islanders are making use of their observations of the spider’s habits. Golden orb-weavers usually choose a spot between trees or shrubs where it begins the web by releasing a thread of silk to float on the air until it sticks to something. The spider then walks the silk tightrope trailing another non-sticky thread to the center. It then repeats the process to make a Y frame on which to begin spinning the large wheeled web.

The spider can also recycle the web by ingesting the web once it loses its sticky qualities and spinning it again. The spiders can maintain the webs for months and have been known to last several years.

The silk is so strong that it has been known to trap small birds. In an apparent attempt to make the web more visible, the spider leaves refuse from insects on the web and adds a network of threads on the front and back of the web as further protection.

Sources include:

www.clemson.edu/

spiders-garden.tripod.com/

www.naturia.per.sg/

arachnology.be

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