Amazing Spiders

Spider webs are threads of silk. Spiders can make as many as seven different kinds of silk, with all different purposes—from making egg cases, to hiding. They are mainly used to catch prey.
Webs are spun by female and immature spiders.
Spider silk is very strong—sturdier than a thread of steel that is as equally thick.

  The silk is made inside the glands of a spider’s abdomen, where it is liquid. When it’s drawn out of their spinnerets, it becomes thread-like.  Photograph by Minden Pictures, Masterfile

Photograph by Jeremy Woodhouse, Masterfile

Argiope spiders form orb webs made of ultraviolet silk. Some flowers (their food source) are also ultraviolet, confusing insects, which believe they’re about to eat nectar. Instead, they end up getting stuck in a web.

Photography by Minden Pictures/Masterfile

A spider waits in its tunnel-shaped web.

Photograph by Joe Vogan, Alamy

Photograph by Jozsef Szentpeteri 

Jumping spiders require no webs to catch a meal. Instead they use their eight eyes to track insects and other spiders. Then they leap as much as 50 times their own body length to catch their prey.