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Spiders make spider silk for various purposes such as weaving their webs, protecting their eggs or as a safety line. The amphipod Peramphithoe femorata uses silk to make a nest out of kelp blades. Another amphipod, Crassicorophium bonellii, use silk to build shelter. Carp produce fibroin units, a component of silk, to attach their eggs to rocks ...
Spider silk structure: crystalline beta-sheets separated by amorphous linkages. Silks have a hierarchical structure. The primary structure is the amino acid sequence of its proteins (), mainly consisting of highly repetitive glycine and alanine blocks, [4] [5] which is why silks are often referred to as a block co-polymer.
Silkhenge structures are a means of spider reproduction used by one or more currently-unknown species of spider. It typically consists of a central " spire " constructed of spider silk , containing one to two eggs, surrounded by a sort of fence of silk in a circle.
Sericulture, or silk farming, is the cultivation of silkworms to produce silk. Although there are several commercial species of silkworms, the caterpillar of the domestic silkmoth is the most widely used and intensively studied silkworm.
The silk generated by the male P. mira is rather versatile; when courting a female nursery web spider, the male spider offers her a "nuptial gift," usually a prey wrapped up in the male's silk. This act of gift-giving serves as the first stage of mating, preceding copulation.
A magnanery (French: magnanerie) is the site of sericulture, or silk farming, similar to a farm being the site of agriculture. The yeoman who runs it is called a magnanier or, more recently, a mangnan. The word magnanière, meaning building dedicated to sericulture, is also seen.
A spinneret is a silk-spinning organ of a spider or the larva of an insect. Some adult insects also have spinnerets, such as those borne on the forelegs of Embioptera. [1] Spinnerets are usually on the underside of a spider's opisthosoma, and are typically segmented. [2] [3] While most spiders have six spinnerets, some have two, four, or eight. [4]
The average toughness of the fibres is 350 MJ/m 3, and some are up to 520 MJ/m 3, making the silk twice as tough as any other spider silk known. [8] The web of Darwin's bark spider is remarkable in that it is not only the longest spanning web ever observed, but is the largest orb web ever seen, at an area of up to 2.8 square metres (30 sq ft). [2]