It seems like some spiders move incredibly fast when they are scurrying past you in your home. How fast do spiders spin webs? In this post we talk about how fast spiders spin webs and some other interesting spider web facts.
Faster than a web spinning spider – How fast do spiders spin webs?
For how intricate spiders webs tend to be, it might surprise you that the average spider can spin a web in about 30 to 60 minutes. Have you ever seen a spider build a web? Most likely you haven’t, as many spiders tend to build their webs at night.
Part of the reason that you might find it hard to believe that spiders build their webs so quickly is that more often than not the webs you are seeing aren’t just from one spider.
Many spiders work together in large communities and create massive webs. This allows them to divide and conquer against their prey and capture more food for everyone.
Location, Location, Location
Spiders don’t just build their webs in any old place; they like to choose where they build their webs very carefully. Spiders will tend to build their webs in high traffic areas for their prey.
As the old saying goes, like a moth to the flame, spiders seem to know that one as well. Spiders instinctively know that other bugs are attracted to light sources. This is why you will often see spider webs around outside lights near your home. They also target other high traffic areas of their prey.
The process of building a spider web
Most spiders rely on wind power to get their web spinning going. Some spiders use wind power to travel the world by ballooning. They’ll shoot a strand of web up in the sky and use wind currents to fly them around. However, most spiders use the wind to get their webs from anchor point to anchor point.
Once a spider has found a suitable location, they then will shoot out a strand of silk and let the wind do it’s work. Once the strand has landed on a sturdy anchor point, such as a tree branch, wall, or other suitable anchor, the spider will secure the other end of the web.
Spiders will continue doing this until the outside of their web frame is built often doubling over their initial web strands in order to strengthen them enough to support the rest of the web. They then work from the inside out building a path to walk on and support the structure and then fill it in with webs to catch prey.
There are also different kinds of silk that spiders use while building a web. To avoid being caught in their own traps, spiders have both sticky silk and non-stick silk that they use to construct their webs. Spiders slowly add in the sticky silk as they build out their webs to make sure the only thing they catch is their food and not themselves.
Spiders don’t have a non-stick Teflon coating to prevent getting trapped in their own web, but they do have tiny hairs on their legs to keep themselves from getting stuck. Once their web is built, spiders wait on the edges of their webs and will sense when something is trapped from the vibrations they feel throughout the web.
Rinse, reuse, recycle
You might be surprised that spiders’ webs don’t usually last too long. They are constantly damaged by the elements and quickly deteriorate. Some spiders will even build new webs on a daily basis.
Spiders do, however, make the best of their old webs. Some spiders leave the main outside structure of their webs intact and then rebuild the inside structures as they fall apart.
Other spiders will eat their damaged webs and recycle the material back into new webs they build, so they don’t have to waste their silk material.
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