Spiders are Amazing Creatures
The other night Ingrid and I were talking about really obvious things that are amazing. I forget what things specifically that we were talking about, but this morning (as I flip through my Flickr uploads) I am reminded of another yet another obvious, amazing thing.
Spiders
If for a moment you can put your fears aside, please make an effort to appreciate what spiders do.
Spiders secrete silk from an organ on the underside of their abdomen called a spinneret. The large majority of spiders have 6 spinnerets that “move independently and in concert to build webs.” Most use those webs to catch their prey (with sticky and non-sticky threads that they maneuver with ease, sensing vibrations), but some spiders “fish” with a sticky “capture blob” of silk on the end of a line, and some even create trapdoors. Typically spiders “prey on insects and on other spiders, although a few large species also take birds and lizards.”
Upon capture, spiders inject their prey with venom, then “they liquidize their food by flooding it with digestive enzymes” because their “guts are too narrow to take solids.”
Here is a fantastic specimen that I noticed in the shed.
The complexity and scope of the web is had to capture in one picture. The dome that you see there is supported by dozens of smaller lines attached to the wall, some going almost 2 feet up.
Notice where the ends of the legs tug on the web. :)
Info source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider
