Spider silk facts for kids
Most spiders can make a special, strong thread called spider silk. They use this amazing silk for many things. Spiders use it to catch their food, either by building a sticky net or by throwing a sticky thread at insects. They also use silk to escape from animals that want to eat them. Plus, spider silk helps them protect their eggs and baby spiders inside a soft, silk cocoon. Spider silk is super tough and doesn't break easily. It's much stronger than you might think!
Unlike the silk from silkworms, it's hard to make a lot of spider silk. This is why we don't see many clothes or other items made from it.
Contents
What is Spider Silk?
Spider silk is a natural material that spiders create inside their bodies. It's a type of protein, similar to the hair and nails on your body, but much stronger! Spiders have special parts called "spinnerets" on their belly that push out the silk.
How Spiders Use Silk
Spiders use their silk for many important jobs.
Catching Food
Many spiders are famous for building webs to catch insects. These webs are made of spider silk and can be very sticky. When an insect flies into the web, it gets stuck, and the spider can then wrap it up in more silk. Some spiders, like the Bolas spider, don't build a big web. Instead, they swing a sticky silk thread with a drop of glue on the end to catch flying insects.
Protection and Safety
Spider silk is also a great tool for safety.
- Escaping Danger: If a spider feels threatened, it can drop quickly from a high place using a silk safety line, like a bungee cord!
- Protecting Eggs: Female spiders lay their eggs inside a silk sac or cocoon. This cocoon keeps the eggs safe from bad weather and from other animals that might want to eat them.
- Homes: Some spiders use silk to build little homes or shelters where they can hide.
Traveling with Silk
Young spiders, and sometimes even adult spiders, can use a special trick called "ballooning." They release a long strand of silk into the wind. The wind then catches the silk, lifting the spider into the air and carrying it to new places. This is how spiders can travel long distances, sometimes even across oceans!
Why is Spider Silk So Strong?
Spider silk is one of the strongest natural materials known. It's even stronger than steel of the same weight! It's also very stretchy, which means it can stretch a lot before it breaks. This combination of strength and stretchiness makes it amazing. Scientists are still studying spider silk to understand exactly how it gets its incredible properties. They hope to learn how to make similar super-strong materials for human use.
Spider Silk in the Future
Because spider silk is so strong and flexible, scientists are very interested in it. They are trying to create artificial spider silk in laboratories. If they succeed, this material could be used for many things, such as:
- Making super-strong and lightweight materials for cars and airplanes.
- Creating medical supplies like very fine stitches for surgery or even artificial skin for burn patients.
- Developing new types of bulletproof vests or strong ropes.
Images for kids
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A garden spider spinning its web.
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A female Argiope bruennichi spider wrapping her prey in silk.
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Indian Summer by Józef Chełmoński (1875) shows a woman with a thread of gossamer (spider silk) in her hand.
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A spider cocoon, protecting eggs or young spiders.
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A female Argiope picta spider wrapping an insect in silk to immobilize it.
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An illustration showing the differences in toughness, stiffness, and strength of materials, including silk.
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A diagram showing how spiders make silk fibers.
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A single strand of artificial spider silk made in a lab.
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A cape made from the silk of Madagascar golden orb spiders.
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A proposed idea for making artificial skin from spider silk for burn patients.
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A diagram of a spider's orb web and the structure of spider silk.
See also
In Spanish: Seda de araña para niños
