Common House Spiders and Their Webs..

I was always told (as a child afraid of spiders) that cobwebs were from dust and not spiders, but recent investigation “blows the dust” right off this theory. I don’t know if people told me that because they were unsure or because they didn’t want me scared and panicky each time I saw a cobweb, but they do, indeed, originate from spiders.

Cobweb, or tangle web (a term I just heard of today), spiders are from a large group of over 2200 species that can be found worldwide. These types of spiders feature a genital plate in the female, a comb of serrated bristles on the tarsus of their fourth leg, and a “sticky capture silk” type of web. Cobweb spiders sometimes live in the webs woven by larger spiders. Sometimes they also eat the prey captured in such webs, the silk from the webs, and even at times they consume the larger spider in whose web it’s been living! They often produce their own webs in bushes and/or buildings, which have a messier appearance compared to some other fabulous web-weaver spiders. Many times their webs appear transparent until they begin to gather dust. At that point, when the web loses some of it’s stickiness and has too much dust, the spiders tend to abandon the webs to find a new destination for a different web. Some spiders build a web each morning and destroy it every evening in a constant pattern or cycle.

The diets for most cobweb spiders are small insects and crickets. Many times they design their web to lead down to dirt or grass in order to trap ants and other ground-dwelling insects. They tend to hang upside down in their web while waiting for their prey to become trapped in their web. Cobweb spiders have weak jaws. Because of this, they inject fluid into the body of their prey with their fangs. This fluid helps break down the cells of the prey so the spider can drink the liquefied tissues, leaving behind the remains.

According to Answers.Google.com, “[j]umping spiders… trail a dragline wherever they go, but don’t make webs,” but just because it isn’t from a web doesn’t mean it wasn’t made by a spider. The site points out that a “single filament like this can sometimes get into the airstream and land and stick somewhere. Likewise… many spiders will disperse from their egg sac by… trailing a long filament of silk from the spinnerets until the air currents catch hold… These filaments can… occur indoors if that’s where the egg sac was located, or they may blow in from the outside.” These single strand threads of web can also serve as evacuation or “escape” routes when the spider feels threatened.

Cobweb spiders are very common house spiders. They can be found in homes in almost every continent. Don’t let their name fol you, though.Some coweb spiders makery intricate webs. They have also been called combfoot spiders due to their bristles on their legs. The genus of spiders to which they belong include both social as well as solitary types of spiders. The female spider can produce egg sacs that can contain hundreds of eggs. Most spiderlings are eaten before they have a chance to reach maturity because the mothers tend to abandon them as soon as they hatch.

As a child I was foled into believing cobwebs didn’t spawn from the draded spider. whether people just didn’t know what they were talking about and they truly believed these cobweb strands originated from dust, I wil never know. As it stands, however, cobwebs certainly do come from spiders. It’s something I have been wondering aboutfor many years, and, now that I know, it might be a bit unsettling for dark ares of the basement that are neglected during routine cleaning, but at least I can finally say i know ho cobwebs are made rather than aimlessly guessing answers.

Sources:

http://www.animalcorner.co.uk/venanimals/ven_spidtang.html

http://www.phorid.net/spiders/biology.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangle_web_spider

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=527145