It has been shown
that a spiders web is attracted to electrically charged objects, a fact which
could help in the capture of its prey.
I’m not going to lie, I hate spiders. I feel like they’re
always planning something, sneakily running around, making webs in corners and
acting suspicious. And let’s be honest, who really needs that many legs?
Well it turns out my suspicions may have been founded, as
new evidence has suggested that spiders are smarter than we give them credit
for.
It has been shown that spider webs are attracted to objects
that are electrically charged, causing the threads of the web to distort
towards each other. This is important when you consider that some insects such
as bees are capable of generating an electric charge when they flap their wings
– causing the whole bee to be seen as electrically charged.
That means that positively charged insects would only have
to fly near a spider web, and they
could be sucked in towards the web which deforms around them. This deformation
dramatically increases the likelihood that they will be trapped and that the
spider will get its next meal.
This is a really interesting piece of research, and could
give us some insight into how we could adapt other materials to be of benefit
to us. What isn’t known however is whether all insects are capable of producing
a charge when flying, which could be the next stage in this investigation.
This is usually the point where I put up a picture of a
spider. However, I’m going to skip that s
tep for this post, mainly because if I
have to upload a picture that means I’ll have to look at a spider, something I try
pretty hard to avoid, especially after knowing how sneaky they are.
What do you think about this discovery? Write below with
your comments or questions and sign up to the mailing list on the right of this
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