Page 97 - The Miracle in the Spider

Managing the Web

Spiders' webs need constant management, because the spiral sticky
part may be damaged by rain or by prey struggling to escape.
Furthermore, dust sticking to the web may destroy the stickiness of the
spiral threads.
A web may, depending on where it is, lose the properties which
enable it to catch insects in a very short time – 24 hours even. For this
reason the web is periodically torn down and re-built. The spider eats and
digests the threads of the web it is tearing down. It will use the amino
acids in the threads it digests to build a new web. 31
That part of the web which is eaten, and the time, differs according
to the species of spider. Garden spiders, for example, do not touch the
frame of the web, but just eat the radius of the web and the sticky spirals.
Tropical spiders construct their webs in darkness and eat them at
dawn. Spiders in temperate regions eat their webs at night and build new

ones for the day, because in these regions there are not as many night
insects as there are in tropical regions. For this reason it is essential for the
webs to be up throughout the day.