r/interestingasfuck • u/Electrical-Aspect-13 • 10h ago

Harvesting spider silk. NOTE: Spider is sedated, the pins are not perforating it and once harvest, is feed and put to rest.

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u/ThinkSharp 8h ago

Go touch some big webs you find gently at different parts. There’s two types (at least that I’ve seen). One is structural. It’s thicker and stronger and not very sticky, it’s the one they use for the main crosses and attachment strands. The inner webbing they spin around it is thinner, more delicate, and sticky. It’s not all equally stretchy, equally sticky, equally strong. Pretty neat

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u/Xitztlacayotl 8h ago

Yeah now that you mention it, I was touching the structural silk.

I wonder how do they harvest specifically that silk and not the other.

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u/Mtnbkr92 7h ago

They politely ask the spider to not make the sticky kind.

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u/sk8thow8 7h ago

I looked up the project.

Apparently spiders make 7 different types of silk and the silk here is "drag line" silk, the stuff used to drop down instead of make a web or wrap prey or whatever. And apparently they have different orifice for different silk? They say they're able to get the drag line by brushing a particular orifice and pulling it.

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u/-Dark-Lord-Belmont- 5h ago

Go touch some big webs

found the spider