Amazing Video Shows Spider Spinning 80+ Feet of Webbing

[Judi Lynn]

By Stephanie Pappas, Live Science Contributor | June 28, 2017 03:14pm ET


The amazing abilities of the Darwin's bark spider are on high-definition display in a video that shows this tiny spider wafting more than 80 feet (25 meters) of webbing across a river.

BBC Earth re-released the video this week. It comes from the 2015 program "The Hunt," which focused on predators. And the Darwin's bark spider is a champion predator: It spins silk tougher than Kevlar and builds webs that dwarf many adult men in size.

Darwin's bark spiders (Caerostris darwini) were discovered only in 2009. They live in Madagascar, where they spin giant orb webs — picture the classic round spider's web — over rivers, lakes and creeks. Webs regularly span more than 6.5 feet (2 m) in diameter, and the largest ever measured covered a whopping 30 square feet (2.8 square m), researchers reported in the Journal of Arachnology in 2010. The spiders spin initial connecting threads that are up to 82 feet (25 m) long to suspend these webs from vegetation on either side of a river or other body of water. The arachnids do this even though females are a mere inch (20 millimeters) long and males only a quarter-inch (6 mm) in length. (Check Out Images of the Largest Puppy-Sized Spider)

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[byronius]

1. Truly amazing video. Wow.