SPIDER #writeyourheartout - Stories from Notion Press

SPIDER

By Dr. R. MURUGESAN in Science Fiction
| 5 min read | 2,019 வாசிக்கப்பட்டவை | பிடித்தமானவை: 0| Report this story

Spiders only spin their webs in the wee hours of the morning and the night. There is a plethora of flying insects at this time. During this period, nets are often constructed in order to catch them.

During the week of August 14–22, which is designated as Spiders Week, a wide variety of resources pertaining to these insects will be made available.

Over 50,000 unique spider species have been identified. India is home to 1,800 unique spider species. A spider, sometimes known as an "eight-legged bug," is commonly believed to have eight legs. However, spiders have anything from 6 to 8 eyes. Despite their common name, zoologists do not consider spider bugs to be insects at all. That's because they argue spiders don't belong to the insect genus, since they don't have sensory horns or wings.

The bites of spiders, like the brown recluse and plague widow, may be fatal. Spiders with such deadly bites are more frequent in North and South America.

The female spider often weighs more than her male counterpart does. Spiders have their venom sacs outside their bodies. A split body is clearly seen. Spiders have a remarkable amount of intelligence. Spiders only spin their webs in the wee hours of the morning and the night. One major explanation is that this is the peak bug activity period. This is the time of year when nets are often constructed to catch them.

The spider builds its web in a spherical or angular pattern. The spider has two glands under its abdomen. They release a fluid that is used to weave the web. After being exposed to air, this liquid takes on the consistency of a very fine wire. Both glands secrete fluid, although it has distinct properties. Adhere to a web produced by a gland's released fluid; do not adhere to each other.

As a result, when insects fall, they flop to the ground. A spider sprays poison on its victim after it has already been killed. Spiders are common in gardens and woodlands, where they lurk outside of their webs in search of food. It is a hiding place for house spiders.

The ploughman has another name for spiders: the ploughman's buddy. The annual amount of dangerous insects consumed and discarded by spiders is between 400 and 800 million tonnes. Insects that cause damage to plants, particularly crops, are the spider's prey. Farmers may count on them as reliable allies. Spiders prey on a wide variety of insects, including those that transfer diseases like houseflies and mosquitoes.

However, it is quite tragic that the helpful spider is being severely harmed by the widespread use of chemicals mandated in agriculture and the widespread use of pesticides sprayed in farm buildings. Ecologists argue that because of the prevalence of dangerous insect species, it is essential to save the spiders that play a crucial role in maintaining the stability of the food web.

Since ancient times, spider silk has been used by humans. Cobwebs were employed by the ancient Greeks to staunch bleeding, and silk was utilised by the Aborigines as fishing lines for delicate species. They still use it today as fish nets in the Solomon Islands, and up until World War II, silk was utilised as the crosshairs in optical aiming equipment like cannons and telescopes.

Spider silk is being studied now because of its promise as a robust and adaptable material. Spider silk's mechanical characteristics and its environmentally friendly production process are what has piqued scientists' and industry leaders' interests. To create Kevlar and other contemporary man-made super-fibres, petrochemical processing is required, adding to environmental damage. Similar to nitric acid, Kevlar is extracted using sulphuric acid at high concentrations. However, making spider silk has no negative effects on the surrounding ecosystem. Using just water and room temperature and pressure, spiders create it.

The spider's egg sac is shaped like an egg and is made of silk. Depending on the species, the female will either carry the egg sac, attach it to a surface, or hide it in a web (wolf, cellar and nursery web spiders). Spiders may lay anything from a few dozen to a few hundred eggs in each of their egg sacs. Baby spiders hatch from their egg sacs and wander off. The wind picks up many of them as they have climbed to the top of a nearby item and released long threads of silk (called gossamer). Ballooning is the term for this kind of dissemination strategy.

Spiderlings, as young spiders are called, seem much like their bigger and darker adult counterparts, except they are much tiny. A spider will go through four to twelve skin moults before reaching adulthood. Male adult spiders are often much smaller than their female counterparts. The males may be recognised by their larger pair of palps (mouthparts), which have been likened to tiny boxing gloves or the fifth set of legs. For the purpose of fertilisation, these palps are important. During the spring and summer, male spiders move about in search of females, and in the early autumn, when the weather becomes colder, they seek refuge in people's houses.

In contrast to the few-year lifespans of the widow and some wolf spiders, most spiders don't even make it through the season. Yet, tarantulas have been known to live for 10 years or more.

Spiders' capacity to weave silk is another trait that distinguishes them unique from all but a select few insect species. Silk, produced by all spiders, is a liquid released by the spinnerets that dry up when exposed to air. Spiders spin silk into egg sacs, ensnare and hold prey, construct retreats, and even transmit sperm between partners during mating. Some bird species can't construct their nests without spider silk; hummingbirds, for example, steal spider webs to use as binding material.

History shows that spiders have been around for quite some time. They've been around for much longer than any of us can fathom, yet we're still fascinated by them. There is evidence that spiders have been around from the earliest days of terrestrial life. According to entomologists, the Attercopus fimbriungus first appeared 380 million years ago, during the Devonian Period, and descended from a thick-waisted spider that had just emerged from aquatic existence.

The majority of segmented fossil spiders belonged to a group of (likely) ground-dwelling predators that made their home in the enormous clubmoss and fern forests that dominated the planet throughout the middle to late Paleozoic. Cockroaches, huge silverfish, slaters, and millipedes were likely their prey. (Do you find yourself favouring them more often?)

It's possible that they first used silk for basic purposes, such as wrapping their eggs or lining their cave. Both the spider and its silk improved with age. In order to catch insects in the air, orb-weaving spiders of the Jurassic Period had built a complex maze-like web.

Spiders that hunt in thick environments, such as litter, bark, and leaves, seem to have adapted to the influx of novel prey in crowded conditions. The spider of 30 million years ago is structurally the same as the spider of today because of the large number of entire spiders preserved in fossils from tree resins.

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