How Spiders Work

An orb-spinning spider puts its elegant traps together pretty quickly, proceeding easily from step to step according to the instruction manual preprogrammed into its brain. The diagram below shows the major steps.

Every web begins with a single thread, which forms the basis of the rest of the structure. To establish this bridge, the spider climbs to a suitable starting point (up a tree branch, for example) and releases a length of thread into the wind. With any luck, the free end of the thread will catch onto another branch. If the spider feels that the thread has caught onto something, it cinches up the silk and attaches the thread to the starting point.

It walks across the thread, releasing a looser thread below the first one. It attaches this thread on both ends and climbs to its center. The looser strand sags downward, forming a V shape. The spider lowers itself from this point, to form a Y-shape. This forms the core support structure of the web.

The spider easily grips the thin threads with special serrated claws, a smooth hook and a series of barbed hairs on the end of its legs. As it walks along the initial structural threads, it lays more frame threads between various anchor points. Then it starts laying out radius threads from the center of the web to the frames. The spider does not coat the frame and radius threads with sticky material, since it needs to walk across them to get around the web.

After building all the radius threads, the spider lays more non-stick silk to form an auxiliary spiral, extending from the center of the web to the outer edge of the web. The spider then spirals in on the web, laying out sticky thread and using the auxiliary spiral as a reference. The spider eats up the auxiliary spiral as it lays out the sticky spiral, resulting in a web with non-sticky radius threads, for getting around, and a sticky spiral for catching bugs.

The spider sits in the middle of its web, monitoring the radius threads for vibrations. If an insect gets caught in any part of the web, the spider will feel the motion through the radius threads and make its way to the vibration source. In this way, the web extends the spider's sensory system over a much wider area. The spider might also leave the web, to retreat to a separate nest, while monitoring the web via a connected signal line.

Web-spinning spiders have an innate ability to tell the difference between vibrations from insect prey and vibrations from other sources (a leaf falling into the web, for example). Many species can also distinguish the characteristic vibrations of dangerous insects, such as wasps, from their preferred prey.

When the orb web has deteriorated and is no longer useful, many spider species will destroy it, eating up all the threads so it can recycle the raw silk material. Spiders may leave the heavy bridge thread so that they can easily rebuild the web at a later point.

For an animated illustration of how spider works, and a more detailed write-up, please visit: How Stuff Works.

Disobedience vs Perseverance

Many of us who are in our youth or teenage years do not like the idea of our parents deciding for our future. Whether it be telling us what to study or what not to, we will always prefer to make our own decisions. Sometimes, we may want to run our lives our own way, and sometimes we prefer to do what our parents did in the past, to justify our actions that if our parents can do it, why can't we.

To follow our parents' footsteps, however, may not always be the correct steps, and because our parents know their past better than we do, they sometimes advise us not to follow their footsteps because they know things we don't. Maybe it is because things have changed with time, or maybe because they find it too dangerous for us, or they have discovered a mistake in their path, it all boils down to the same objective they want for us - to have a brighter future.

Unfortunately, in our youth, we do not always understand our parents' intent, so we sometimes rebel. We do things behind our parents' backs so as to get back at them or so as to make decisions of our own. Superheroes like Spider-Girl did that too. She secretly gets training from Uncle Phil and disappears to play her own 'games', but no matter how she goes against the will of her father, she always looked to the day that he will accept her for what she is.

As a girl in her teenage years, Spider-Girl discovers she possesses capabilities beyond a normal human because she inherited the strength of her father, Spider-Man. Unfortunately, her father who has given up super heroism after losing a leg during his Spider-Man days, cannot quite accept the idea of his daughter following his footsteps. When Spider-Girl begins to 'disappear' to do her superhero stunts and secretly gets training under the guidance of Uncle Phil, Spider-Man eventually gives in and teaches his daughter personally.

It is through patience and perseverance, not disobedience, that Spider-Girl was able to finally convince her father she is doing the right thing. When Spider-Man finally relents, he not only consents to her decision, but also helps her along the journey in carving out her future.

Following the footsteps of Spider-Girl, I think the correct approach to our parents' advice should be to listen, and accept their concerns. However, if we know we have made a right choice, we must persevere to convince them our directions instead of demonstrating our disobedience by disappearing, ignoring, avoiding, or doing what we think is best for ourselves without consulting them. If we can get our parents support, it is always better to do so, because we can then go a long way in doing what we want to do.

So for all of us, we must stand strong, persevere, and do not faint when our parents discipline us. We know it is for our good that they sometimes make decisions on our behalf. Even though these decisions are not always the best, we can use them if we are unclear of our directions. If we discover our own interests and can produce materials that prove our interests will help us pull through our lifelihood for the future, then, make it known to our parents, and let them decide what is best for us.