Light rain is finally starting to fall here in Seattle, after the driest summer on record. (Rainfall for May-August was 2.5″, compared to 7.0″ normally).
Here’s another one of my resident European garden spiders (Araneus diadematus), repairing its web today, from a little wind and rain damage.
Spider silk is more durable and elastic than even the strongest man-made fiber, Kevlar, which is used to fill bulletproof vests. Silk is mainly protein, but a single spider can produce as many as seven different silks from its spinnerets. The silks in the radial lines, and the spiral lines in this web are different, and the spider also dots the radial lines with sticky balls of silky goo. Watch out, flying insects.
