Latest Spider Stories

Like silkworm moths, butterflies and spiders, caddisfly larvae spin silk, but they do so underwater instead on dry land. Now, University of Utah researchers have discovered why the fly's silk is sticky when wet and how that may make it valuable as an adhesive tape during surgery."Silk from caddisfly larvae "“ known to western fly fishermen as 'rock rollers' "“ may be useful some day as a medical bioadhesive for sticking to wet tissues," says Russell Stewart, an associate...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Engineering researchers have crafted a flat surface that refuses to get wet. Water droplets skitter across it like ball bearings tossed on ice.The inspiration? Not wax. Not glass. Not even Teflon.Instead, University of Florida engineers have achieved what they label in a new paper a "nearly perfect hydrophobic interface" by reproducing, on small bits of flat plastic, the shape and patterns of the minute hairs that grow on the bodies of spiders."They have short hairs...

Just because cricket moms abandon their eggs before they hatch doesn't mean they don't pass wisdom along to their babies. New research in the American Naturalist shows that crickets can warn their unborn babies about potential predator threats.Researchers Jonathan Storm of the University of South Carolina Upstate in Spartanburg and Steven Lima of Indiana State University placed pregnant crickets into enclosures containing a wolf spider. The spiders' fangs were covered with wax so the spiders...

Any way you look at it -- by sheer weight, species diversity or population -- the hard-shelled, joint-legged creepy crawlies called arthropods dominate planet Earth. Because of their success and importance, scientists have been trying for decades to figure out the family relationships that link lobsters to millipedes and cockroaches to tarantulas and find which might have come first.In a scientific and technological tour de force that was nearly a decade in the making, a team of scientists...

A spider may be the reason fog-catching nets, which provide precious water in rain-starved parts of the world, may be ready for a high-tech upgrade. Chinese scientists reported their research in the journal Nature on why spider's silk is not only famous for strength but also terrific for collecting water from the air, sparing the creature the hunt for a drink. The secret lies in the silk's tail-shaped protein fibers that change structure in response to water. The tiny section of thread...

The new species is the largest of its type in the Middle East, but its habitat is endangeredA new and previously unknown species of spider has been discovered in the dune of the Sands of Samar in the southern Arava region by a team of scientists from the Department of Biology in the University of Haifa-Oranim. Unfortunately, however, its habitat is endangered. "The discovery of this new spider illustrates our obligation to preserve the dune," says Dr. Shanas, who headed the team of...

The owner of a pet tarantula in England recently got an unpleasant surprise after cleaning out the cage of his eight-legged companion.After suffering from a severe eye inflammation for more than three weeks, the man went to a local clinic to have it checked out.  Upon examination, doctors told him that he appeared to have tiny hairs protruding from his eyeball "” at which point the man recalled that his pet arachnid had sprayed his face with a barrage of tiny hairs when he had last...

With would-be goblins and ghosts set to drape those huge fake spider webs over doorways and trees for Halloween, scientists in Wyoming are reporting on a long-standing mystery about real spider webs: It is the secret of spider web glue. The findings are an advance toward a new generation of biobased adhesives and glues "” "green" glues that replace existing petroleum-based products for a range of uses. A report on the study was published in ACS' Biomacromolecules, a monthly...

Name all the venomous animals you can think of and you probably come up with snakes, spiders, bees, wasps and perhaps poisonous frogs. But catfish?A new study by University of Michigan graduate student Jeremy Wright finds that at least 1,250 and possibly more than 1,600 species of catfish may be venomous"”far more than previously believed. The research is described in a paper published online Dec. 4 in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology.Lest anyone have concerns about attacks...

Venomous redback spiders, named after their fiery markings, are invading Japan's Osaka region, a wildlife expert recently warned.It is believed that that they actually arrived years ago aboard a cargo ship coming from Australia, most likely in a container of Australian woodchips.Japan Wildlife Research Centre official Toshio Kishimoto reports that as many as a dozen people have been bitten, including a 6-year-old boy in June, who received the first antivenom treatment in Japan."Their...