How Does a Spider Spin Its Web; Step on Making Orb Webbing

Itsy bitsy spiders—and some that aren’t so itsy bitsy—live everywhere on Earth, except for the Polar Regions. They crawl around in dry deserts, on mountains, below ground, in oceans—possibly in some corners of your home.

Most spiders are web masters. A gland in their abdomen produces silk. The silk is pushed through a body part called spinneret and comes out as a thread. Some spiders spin silk webs that look like big white sheets. Some webs look like tiny drops stretched across plants or grass. One of the most common webs is the orb web, which is shown in the illustration below.

This is the kind you see on the Halloween or in a spooky haunted house in scary movies. A spider waits at the center of the orb web for a tasty insect to land. This makes the web vibrate. The spider knows from the vibration whether or not it is food. If the spider is lucky, dinner is served!

Making an Spider Orb Web

1. The spider finds a good spot, such as a tree branch, and makes a strand. The dangling strand sticks to another branch. The spider attaches the other end of the strands to the branch it’s standing on. Then it crosses back and the forth over that strand, strengthening it with more stands.
2. The spider makes a loose strand connecting the two ends of the first strand. Next it drops down a strand at the middle of the loop to form a Y shape. These three strands are the first spokes of the web.
3. The spider spins a frame around the Y-shaped spoke. The rest of the spokes will be attached to the frame.
4. The spider makes more spokes. Each spoke is close so the spider can walk on one while making another. Spokes also must be close enough so the spider can walk across them when the web is complete. These threads are not sticky.
5. When the spokes are finished, the spider makes a few circular threads in the center of the web to make it strong. Then it spins a spiral of non-sticky thread from the center of the web to the edge of the frame. This helps the spider construct the rest of the web.
6. The spider spins many more spiral strands using sticky threads. When finished, the spider will remove the non-sticky spiral. Total time for the building the web: 30 minutes. Some spiders build a new web every day, while others just repair any damage.

Meet; The Real Spider-Man

Steven Kutcher knows spiders. He is an entomologist, a scientist who studies insdects. People in Hollywood call him bug wrangler. For more than 20 years, Kutcher has been rounding up bugs and helping them get roles in movies and TV. He worked on the first three Spider-Man movies, as well as many others in which insects played a supporting role.

During “auditions,” Kutcher doesn’t look for insects that can act. He looks for bugs that can get the job done. For Spider-Man, for instance, Kutcher studied what spider would have to do—spin a web, climb a wall.

Kutcher hopes that insect-filled movies will help turn bug-fearing folks into fans.