Anatomy of a spiderweb

If you’ve ever stood and looked at a spiderweb for any length of time you can’t help but be impressed by the work that goes into it.  We have a lot of orb spiders here and there is one in particular that builds a web across the driveway that is over a metre in diameter.  If we knock a bit of it down on our way out to the shed in the dark then it is usually repaired by the time we come back.  It’s a pretty amazing piece of architecture, even if you do have eight hands to hang on to all the strings.

Image from brisbaneinsects.com

I’ve never thought about the ‘anatomy’ of a spider web before but, now that I’ve seen this diagram on brisbaneinsects.com via the ABC Science Facebook page, I realise that if you’re going to study something the first thing you need to do is name the parts so you can discuss it intelligently.

So, just for a bit of fun here is the Anatomy of a Spider Web.  In case you ever find yourself on my driveway with not much else to talk about!