CLOSED: Question about Spiders!!!!

This has boggled my mind for years: HOW do spiders build these enormous webs that can be several feet across and get from one side to the other to anchor it? So many times I see these masterpeice webs that appear to be suspended in mid air...until you look close enough and find it's attached to something 8 feet away by a single strand. I know they can't fly, but there has to be some way they get from point A to point B to start the darn thing!!!

As far as I'm concerned this is a greater fete than the bldg. of the pyramids!!!!! Besides, we all know UFO's helped out with those!!!

I'm told they can spin non-sticky webs, that they actually pay out as they walk from A to B, and spin the sticky web once there are some 'cables' to work from. They might take advantage of wind and do it that way too. The webbing they wrap their prey with is different stuff again. Maybe spiders helped build the pyramids ! A lot of spiders make a new web everyday, maybe you could watch one at work.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ednieuw/Spiders/Info/Construction_of_a_web.html

Web construction is complicated. To start the web, Argiope firmly grasps a substrate like a grass stem or window frame. She lifts her abdomen and emits several strands of silk from her spinnerets that merge into one thread. The free end of the thread drifts until it touches something far away, like a stem or a flower stalk. She then creates bridge lines, and other scaffolding to help her build the framework of the web. She builds a hub with threads radiating from it like a spokes of a wheel. She switches to sticky silk for the threads spiraling around this hub that will actually catch her prey. It may take a few hours to complete the web, then she eats the temporary scaffolding and the center hub. Argiope spiders often add stabilimenta, or heavy zig-zagging portions, in their webs. A stabilimentum may or may not aid prey capture (see below). The entire web is usually eaten and then rebuilt each night, often in the same place. (Dewey, 1993; Faulkner, 1999; Lyon, 1995; Milne and Milne, 1980; Nyffeler, Dean, and Sterling, 1987; Zschokke, 2006)

The function of web stabilimenta is controversial. At least 78 species of spiders add these structures to their webs, originally named "stabilimenta" because they were thought to provide structural stability. One study of Argiope spiders supports the idea that these bright white structures attract flying insects (Tso 1998). Contrary to this "prey attraction hypothesis," hungry spiders build fewer or smaller stabilimenta, and webs with stabilimenta capture fewer prey (Blackledge 1998, Blackledge and Wenzel 1999). A competing hypothesis is that the highly visible threads prevent birds from flying through and destroying the webs. Spiders of another species, Octonoba sybotides, vary their stabilimenta in order to control thread tension. Different tensions allow a spider to detect prey of different sizes. However, this mechanical hypothesis doesn't explain why only diurnal spiders use stabilimenta. (Milius 2000). (Blackledge and Wenzel, 1999; Blackledge, 1998; Lyon, 1995; Milius, 2000; Tso, 1998)

From a VERY interesting site:
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Argiope_aurantia.html

I watched an orb spider (not this one) build a web the other day, and on the spoke threads, there were extra thick areas of silk, distanced an inch or so apart. When she made the spiral threads, she used these as a guide, and then would pull it in tighter along the "spokes". It was so awesome to watch!

Ceejay....That's amazing...Thanks for the explanation. I'll definitely ck. out the link.!

JD

Hi ceejaytown and JasperDale- one of the sources you mentioned ceejay, Milne and Milne 1980, say the vertical zig-zag stabilimenta is spun by the male Argiope. I wonder if it's for access for the male, who might otherwise get trapped in the web?

I have never heard of that before. My understanding is the male may build his own little web at the edge of the female's, and then plucks the strands of her web to announce his presence, hoping not to get wrapped and eaten. That gives him a retreat in case she misunderstands his intentions (or has a headache). Everything I have read indicates the female makes the zig-zag. And that makes sense because she builds her web before any male wanders upon the scene, and it already has that zig-zag. We had a "pet" black and yellow argiope on our back deck, near windows, several years ago (of course, she was named Charlotte). The lit windows attracted insects and she was very healthy. When it got cool in the fall, and insects became scarcer, I would catch what I could and throw them in her web. We found her on the deck, dead, after the first fall frost, but she left behind two beautiful egg sacs. She made her zig-zags..... But I still wonder what they are for. I've thought maybe it just helps to hide her presence.

The males are so small in comparison, I don't know. I thought Charlotte was a Araneus diadematus! Now I'm really disillusioned.... I go to that fair every year lol

LOL I don't know what the real Charlotte was. We just named our Black & Yellow Argiope Charlotte 'cause we liked it!

What fair?

The Blue Hill Fair, Hancock County, Maine. E.B.White had a place there. I saw a thousand pound hog for a dollar, once. lol


http://www.bluehillfair.com/

Looks like fun! Rare invisible ape - I have to not see that!! LOL