Arachnophobia
All images in this gallery were taken by HCMNs
Betsy Cross and Hays County Master Naturalists
Space alien or arachnid? Photo: Betsy Cross
Click on any photo and scroll through our arachno-gallery for a closer look—if you dare!
ARACHNO-PHILIA…
…look it up, and then take a close look at the photo below. A spiral extends from a tightly spun center or “hub.” It circles around and around to create a perfect tension of support. Moving in a clockwise direction, this spiny orbweaver stops every few seconds to tack silk to the spokes (radial lines). Can you find where she slipped a stitch?
It takes less than a minute to make one complete revolution in its new web hung between the eave of my house and an adjacent tree. A given weight of spider silk is five times as strong as the same weight of steel, but this new web is also fragile and exposed. It may only keep its integrity a day or two.
How do they do it? What’s in the brain of a tiny creature that tells it how to create the elaborate cabling (frame lines) spanning a distance of 4-6 feet and held by silk “guy wires” in perfect triangular symmetry?
I think that’s pretty magical.
Betsy Cross
Originally published in The Hays Humm — October 2021 Magazine