File:ALL SPIDERS SPIN SILK, BUT NOT ALL SPIDERS SPIN WEBS.jpg

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English: DID YOU KNOW!!!

Smooth as Silk - For its weight, spider web silk is actually stronger and tougher than steel.

All spiders produce silk but not all spiders spin webs. Silk is used for climbing, to create webs, to build smooth walls in burrows, build egg sacs, and wrap prey. Where does it come from? Most spiders have four or more openings, or glands, on their abdomen called spinnerets. When the spider releases the silk, it looks like one thread but it is actually many thin threads that stick together. As soon as this liquid silk hits the air it hardens.

Many spiders use their silk for something called ‘draglines’.

This is a rope-like web that helps the spider climb back home if they fall or let themselves drop.

Different spiders produce different types of silk. Silk can be sticky, dry or stretchy. Surprisingly, silk is so strong that some spiders use it for traveling. With one end attached to a surface such as a tree branch, the spider will hang onto the end and let the wind carry it away! Just like Spiderman! This is called ‘ballooning’ and can take the spider many kilometers.

Larger spiders, like the huge bird eating spiders, can actually catch and subdue animals as large as bats, mice, fish, birds and even snakes with their strong webs. Spiders like the Bolas spider will fish with their silk. When they spot their prey, they swing out a line with a sticky glob at the end and that sticks to the wings or body of their next meal! Who knew silk could be so useful…or dangerous - if you’re a bug!

Did you know that spiders will recycle their silk? Yup, they eat up what isn’t useful anymore and start over with fresh stuff. Male spiders weave a small “sperm” web. They then place a drop of semen on the web, suck it up with their pedipalps, and then use the pedipalp to insert the sperm into the female.

The Bagheera kiplingi is the world’s only (mostly) vegetarian spider.

Spiders have blue blood. In humans, oxygen is bound to hemoglobin, a molecule that contains iron and gives blood its red color. In spiders, oxygen is bound to hemocyanin, a molecule that contains copper rather than iron.

Wolf spiders can run at speeds of up to 2 feet per second.

Spiders do not have teeth, so they cannot chew their food. Instead, they inject digestive juices into the innards of their meal. Then the spider sucks up it innards.

Hundreds of years ago, people put spider webs on their wounds because they believed it would help stop the bleeding. Scientists now know that the silk contains vitamin K, which helps reduce bleeding.

Approximately 40,000 world wide, that it's hard to figure out which ones you need to worry about and which ones are harmless. In this gallery I rank the 10 most dangerous spiders in the world.
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Author Shiv's fotografia

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