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⚠️TURN ON SUBTITLES / CLOSED CAPTIONS FOR COORDINATES AND LOCATION INFORMATION ⚠️ VIDEO INFO ALL 100 SSO SPIDER LOCATIONS IN STAR STABLE ONLINE AS WELL AS THE REWARDS FOR THE QUEST.
Spider cocoonSpider silk is a spun. Spiders use their to make or other structures, which function as sticky nets to catch other animals, or as nests or cocoons to protect their offspring, or to wrap up prey.
They can also use their silk to suspend themselves, to float through the air, or to glide away from predators. Most spiders vary the thickness and stickiness of their silk for different uses.In some cases, spiders may even use silk as a source of food. While methods have been developed to collect silk from a spider by force, it is difficult to gather silk from many spiders in a small space, in contrast to 'farms'. Contents.Biodiversity Uses All spiders produce silks, and a single spider can produce up to seven different types of silk for different uses.
This is in contrast to insect silks, where an individual usually only produces one type of silk. Spider silks may be used in many different ecological ways, each with properties to match the silk's function. As spiders have evolved, so has their silks' complexity and diverse uses, for example from primitive tube webs 300–400 million years ago to complex orb webs 110 million years ago. UseExampleReferencePrey captureThe orb webs produced by the (typical orb-weavers); tube webs; tangle webs; sheet webs; lace webs, dome webs; single thread used by the Bolas spiders for 'fishing'.Prey immobilisationSilk used as 'swathing bands' to wrap up prey. Often combined with immobilising prey using a venom. In species of the silk is combined with venom and squirted from the.ReproductionMale spiders may produce sperm webs; spider eggs are covered in silk cocoons.Dispersalused by smaller spiders to float through the air, for instance for dispersal.Source of foodThe eating the silk of host spider webs. Some daily weavers of temporary webs also eat their own unused silk daily, thus mitigating a heavy metabolic expense.Nest lining and nest constructionTube webs used by 'primitive' spiders such as the European tube web spider ( ).
Threads radiate out of nest to provide a sensory link to the outside. Silk is a component of the lids of spiders that use 'trapdoors', such as members of the family, and the 'water' or 'diving bell' spider builds its diving bell of silk.Guide linesSome spiders that venture from shelter will leave a trail of silk by which to find their way home again.Drop lines and anchor linesMany spiders, such as the, that venture from shelter and leave a trail of silk, use that as an emergency line in case of falling from inverted or vertical surfaces.
Many others, even web dwellers, will deliberately drop from a web when alarmed, using a silken thread as a drop line by which they can return in due course. An illustration of the differences between toughness, stiffness and strengthA frequent mistake made in the mainstream media is to confuse strength and toughness, when comparing silk to other materials. Weight for weight, silk is stronger than steel, but not as strong as. Silk is, however, tougher than either.The variability of mechanical properties of spider silk fibres may be important and it is related to their degree of molecular alignment.
Mechanical properties depend strongly on the ambient conditions, i.e. Humidity and temperature. Strength A dragline silk's is comparable to that of high-grade alloy (450−2000 MPa), and about half as strong as filaments, such as or Kevlar (3000 MPa). In 2018, a wood-based nanofiber achieved tensile stiffness eight times greater and with higher tensile strength than spider silk. Density Consisting of mainly protein, silks are about a sixth of the density of steel (1.3 g/cm 3). As a result, a strand long enough to circle the Earth would weigh less than 500 grams (18 oz). (Spider dragline silk has a tensile strength of roughly 1.3.
The tensile strength listed for steel might be slightly higher—e.g. 1.65 GPa, but spider silk is a much less dense material, so that a given weight of spider silk is five times as strong as the same weight of steel.)Energy density The of dragline spider silk is roughly 1.2 ×10 8 J/m 3. Extensibility Silks are also extremely, with some able to stretch up to five times their relaxed length without breaking.Toughness The combination of strength and ductility gives dragline silks a very high (or work to fracture), which 'equals that of commercial filaments, which themselves are benchmarks of modern polymer fibre technology'.
Temperature While unlikely to be relevant in nature, dragline silks can hold their strength below −40 °C (−40 °F) and up to 220 °C (428 °F). As occurs in many materials, spider silk fibres undergo a. The glass-transition temperature depends on the humidity, as water is a for the silk. Supercontraction When exposed to water, dragline silks undergo supercontraction, shrinking up to 50% in length and behaving like a weak rubber under tension. Many hypotheses have been suggested as to its use in nature, with the most popular being to automatically tension webs built in the night using the morning dew. Highest-performance The toughest known spider silk is produced by the species ( Caerostris darwini): 'The toughness of forcibly silked fibers averages 350, with some samples reaching 520 MJ/m 3.
Darwini silk is more than twice as tough as any previously described silk, and over 10 times tougher than Kevlar'. Adhesive properties Silk fibre is a two-compound secretion, spun into patterns (called 'attachment discs') that are employed to adhere silk threads to various surfaces using a minimum of silk substrate. The pyriform threads under ambient conditions, become functional immediately, and are usable indefinitely, remaining biodegradable, versatile and compatible with numerous other materials in the environment.
The adhesive and durability properties of the attachment disc are controlled by functions within the spinnerets. Some adhesive properties of the silk resemble, consisting of and enclosures. Types of silk Many species of spider have different to produce silk with different properties for different purposes, including housing, construction, defence, capturing and detaining, egg protection, and mobility (fine 'gossamer' thread for, or for a strand allowing the spider to drop down as silk is extruded). Different specialised silks have evolved with properties suitable for different uses. For example, has five different types of silk, each used for a different purpose: SilkUsemajor-ampullate (dragline) silkUsed for the web's outer rim and spokes and also for the lifeline.
Can be as strong per unit weight as steel, but much tougher.capture-spiral (flagelliform) silkUsed for the capturing lines of the web. Sticky, extremely stretchy and tough. The capture spiral is sticky due to droplets of aggregate (a spider glue) that is placed on the spiral.
The elasticity of flagelliform allows for enough time for the aggregate to adhere to the aerial prey flying into the web.tubiliform (a.k.a. Cylindriform) silkUsed for protective egg sacs. Stiffest silk.aciniform silkUsed to wrap and secure freshly captured prey. Two to three times as tough as the other silks, including dragline.minor-ampullate silkUsed for temporary scaffolding during web construction.Piriform (pyriform)Piriform serves as the attachment disk to dragline silk.
Piriform is used in attaching spider silks together to construct a stable web.Structural Macroscopic structure down to protein hierarchy. Structure of spider silk. Inside a typical fibre there are crystalline regions separated by amorphous linkages. The crystals are beta-sheets that have assembled together.Silks, like many other biomaterials, have a hierarchical structure. The is the sequence of its proteins , mainly consisting of highly repetitive glycine and alanine blocks, which is why silks are often referred to as a block co-polymer. On a secondary structure level, the short side chained alanine is mainly found in the crystalline domains of the nanofibril, glycine is mostly found in the so-called amorphous matrix consisting of helical and beta turn structures.
It is the interplay between the hard crystalline segments, and the strained elastic semi-amorphous regions, that gives spider silk its extraordinary properties. Various compounds other than protein are used to enhance the fibre's properties. Has hygroscopic properties which keeps the silk moist while also warding off ant invasion. It occurs in especially high concentration in glue threads.
Releases in aqueous solution, resulting in a of about 4, making the silk and thus protecting it from and that would otherwise digest the protein. Is believed to prevent the protein from denaturing in the acidic milieu.This first very basic model of silk was introduced by Termonia in 1994 who suggested crystallites embedded in an amorphous matrix interlinked with hydrogen bonds.
This model has refined over the years: semi-crystalline regions were found as well as a fibrillar skin core model suggested for spider silk, later visualised. Sizes of the nanofibrillar structure and the crystalline and semi-crystalline regions were revealed by.It has been possible to relate microstructural information and macroscopic mechanical properties of the fibres. The results show that ordered regions (i) mainly reorient by deformation for low-stretched fibres and (ii) the fraction of ordered regions increases progressively for higher stretching of the fibres. Schematic of the spider’s orb web, structural modules, and spider silk structure. On the left is shown a schematic drawing of an orb web.
The red lines represent the dragline, radial line, and frame lines, the blue lines represent the spiral line, and the centre of the orb web is called the “hub”. Sticky balls drawn in blue are made at equal intervals on the spiral line with viscous material secreted from the aggregate gland. Attachment cement secreted from the piriform gland is used to connect and fix different lines.
Microscopically, the spider silk secondary structure is formed of spidroin and is said to have the structure shown on the right side. In the dragline and radial line, a crystalline β-sheet and an amorphous helical structure are interwoven. The large amount of β-spiral structure gives elastic properties to the capture part of the orb web. In the structural modules diagram, a microscopic structure of dragline and radial lines is shown, composed mainly of two proteins of MaSp1 and MaSp2, as shown in the upper central part. In the spiral line, there is no crystalline β-sheet region.Non-protein composition Various compounds other than protein are found in spider silks, such as sugars, lipids, ions, and pigments that might affect the aggregation behaviour and act as a protection layer in the final fibre.
Schematic of the spiders spinning apparatus and structural hierarchy in silk assembling related to assembly into fibers. In the process of dragline production, the primary structure protein is secreted first from secretory granules in the tail.
In the ampullate (neutral environment, pH = 7), the proteins form a soft micelle of several tens of nanometers by self-organization because the hydrophilic terminals are excluded. In ampullate, the concentration of the protein is very high. Then, the micelles are squeezed into the duct. The long axis direction of the molecules is aligned parallel to the duct by a mechanical frictional force and partially oriented. The continuous lowering of pH from 7.5 to 8.0 in the tail to presumably close to 5.0 occurs at the end of the duct.
Ion exchange, acidification, and water removal all happen in the duct. The shear and elongational forces lead to phase separation. In the acidic bath of the duct, the molecules attain a high concentration liquid crystal state. Finally, the silk is spun from the taper exterior. The molecules become more stable helixes and β-sheets from the liquid crystal.The gland's visible, or external, part is termed the. Depending on the complexity of the species, spiders will have two to eight spinnerets, usually in pairs.
There exist highly different specialised glands in different spiders, ranging from simply a sac with an opening at one end, to the complex, multiple-section major ampullate glands of the.Behind each spinneret visible on the surface of the spider lies a gland, a generalised form of which is shown in the figure to the right, 'Schematic of a generalised gland'. Schematic of a generalised gland of a. Each differently coloured section highlights a discrete section of the gland.Gland characteristics. The first section of the gland labelled 1 on Figure 1 is the secretory or tail section of the gland.
The walls of this section are lined with cells that secrete proteins Spidroin I and Spidroin II, the main components of this spider's dragline. These proteins are found in the form of droplets that gradually elongate to form long channels along the length of the final fibre, hypothesised to assist in preventing crack formation or even self-healing of the fibre. The second section is the storage sac.
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This stores and maintains the gel-like unspun silk dope until it is required by the spider. In addition to storing the unspun silk gel, it secretes proteins that coat the surface of the final fibre. The funnel rapidly reduces the large diameter of the storage sac to the small diameter of the tapering duct.
The final length is the tapering duct, the site of most of the fibre formation. This consists of a tapering tube with several tight about turns, a valve almost at the end (mentioned in detail at point No. 5 below) ending in a spigot from which the solid silk fibre emerges. The tube here tapers hyperbolically, therefore the unspun silk is under constant elongational shear stress, which is an important factor in fibre formation.
This section of the duct is lined with cells that exchange ions, reduce the dope pH from neutral to acidic, and remove water from the fibre. Collectively, the shear stress and the ion and pH changes induce the liquid silk dope to undergo a phase transition and condense into a solid protein fibre with high molecular organisation. The spigot at the end has lips that clamp around the fibre, controlling fibre diameter and further retaining water. Almost at the end of the tapering duct is a valve, approximate position marked '5' on figure 1. Though discovered some time ago, the precise purpose of this valve is still under discussion.
It is believed to assist in restarting and rejoining broken fibres, acting much in the way of a, regulating the thickness of the fibre, and/or clamping the fibre as a spider falls upon it. There is some discussion of the similarity of the silk worm's silk press and the roles each of these valves play in the production of silk in these two organisms.Throughout the process the unspun silk appears to have a nematic texture, in a similar manner to a, arising in part due to the extremely high protein concentration of silk dope (around 30% in terms of weight per volume). This allows the unspun silk to flow through the duct as a liquid but maintain a molecular order.As an example of a complex spinning field, the spinneret apparatus of an adult (garden cross spider) consists of the glands shown below. Similar multiple gland architecture exists in the black widow spider. 500 pyriform glands for attachment points. 4 ampullate glands for the web frame. about 300 aciniform glands for the outer lining of egg sacs, and for ensnaring prey.
4 tubuliform glands for egg sac silk. 4 aggregate glands for adhesive functions. 2 coronate glands for the thread of adhesion linesArtificial synthesis. A cape made from Madagascar silk.Peasants in the southern used to cut up tubes built by and cover wounds with the inner lining. It reportedly facilitated healing, and even connected with the skin. This is believed to be due to antiseptic properties of spider silk and because the silk is rich in, which can be effective in clotting blood.
Due to the difficulties in extracting and processing substantial amounts of spider silk, the largest known piece of made of spider silk is an 11-by-4-foot (3.4 by 1.2 m) textile with a tint made in in 2009. Eighty-two people worked for four years to collect over one million and extract silk from them.The silk of was used in research concerning regeneration.Spider silk has been used as a thread for in optical instruments such as telescopes, microscopes,. In 2011, spider silk fibres were used in the field of optics to generate very fine diffraction patterns over used in optical communications. In 2012, spider silk fibres were used to create a set of violin strings.Development of methods to spider silk has led to manufacturing of military, medical and consumer goods, such as, athletic footwear, products, and coatings, mechanical pumps, fashion clothing,.
Attempts at producing synthetic spider silk Replicating the complex conditions required to produce fibres that are comparable to spider silk has proven difficult in research and early-stage manufacturing. Through, Escherichia coli bacteria, yeasts, plants, silkworms, and animals have been used to produce spider silk proteins, which have different, simpler characteristics than those from a spider. Artificial spider silks have fewer and simpler proteins than natural dragline silk, and are consequently half the diameter, strength, and flexibility of natural dragline silk. One approach is to extract the spider silk and use other organisms to produce the spider silk.
Working under the trademark, Canadian company Nexia successfully produced spider silk protein in that carried the gene for it; the milk produced by the goats contained significant quantities of the protein, 1–2 grams of silk proteins per litre of milk. Attempts to spin the protein into a fibre similar to natural spider silk resulted in fibres with tenacities of 2–3 grams per. Nexia used wet spinning and squeezed the silk protein solution through small extrusion holes in order to simulate the behavior of the spinneret, but this procedure was not sufficient to replicate the stronger properties of native spider silk. Extrusion of protein fibres in an aqueous environment is known as 'wet-spinning'. This process has so far produced silk fibres of diameters ranging from 10 to 60 μm, compared to diameters of 2.5–4 μm for natural spider silk. In March 2010, researchers from the succeeded in making spider silk directly using the bacteria E. Coli, modified with certain genes of the spider.
CreditVictoria RobertsSpiders that build the familiar orb-shaped web usually start with a single superstrength strand called a bridge thread or bridge line. The telescoping is believed to gives it its strength.First, the material for the bridge thread emerges from one of the spider’s specialized silk glands and is formed into a strand by its spinnerets. The loose end is drawn out by gravity or the breeze and allowed to blow in the prevailing wind, a process called kiting or ballooning.If the strand does not make contact with something and attach to it, and recycle its proteins, then try again. If the gap is bridged, the spider reinforces the strand and uses it to start the web.A single may be left in place overnight to mark a spider’s territory and a desirable starting spot for building a web the next day. CLAIBORNE RAY.