A spider web, spiderweb, spider's web, or cobweb (from the obsolete word coppe, meaning "spider") is a device created by a spider out of proteinaceous spider silk extruded from its spinnerets.
Spider webs have existed for at least 100 million years, as witnessed in a rare find of Early Cretaceous amber from Sussex, southern England. Insects can get trapped in spider webs, providing nutrition to the spider; however, not all spiders build webs to catch prey, and some do not build webs at all. "Spider web" is typically used to refer to a web that is apparently still in use (i.e. clean), whereas "cobweb" refers to abandoned (i.e. dusty) webs. However, "cobweb" is used to describe the tangled three-dimensional web of some spiders of the Therididae family. Whilst this large family is also known as the tangle-web spiders, cobweb spiders and comb-footed spiders, they actually have a huge range of web architectures.
Read more about Spider Web: Silk Production, Types of Spider Webs, Uses, Adhesive Properties, Communal Spider Webs, Outside Influences, Low Gravity, In Popular Culture, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words spider and/or web:
“By straightening out and lifting a forefinger,
He pointed with his hand from where it lay
Like a white crumpled spider on his knee:”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“However, our fates at least are social. Our courses do not diverge; but as the web of destiny is woven it is fulled, and we are cast more and more into the centre. Men naturally, though feebly, seek this alliance, and their actions faintly foretell it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)