Spiders Often Make Custom Built Webs In Order To Catch Their Favorite Meals

An international team of researchers has stumbled upon the bizarre way that orb weaver spiders build their webs to catch the live meals that they find most appetizing. In fact, it seems as though the OW spider is able to build its web in such a way that it will only catch the most nutritious of prey.

Traditionally, biologists and entomologists assumed that the process of web building and the spider’s ability to sense the webs vibrations, was a simple and straightforward process. However, as a recent study has demonstrated, web building is a far more complex arachnid activity than previously thought.

The results of the study showed that spiders value protein more than any other nutrient, and the OW spider builds its web in order to maximize protein intake. For example, OW spiders prefer crickets, and they will fortify their webs in order to trap as many crickets as possible. However, if crickets are scarce, the OW spider will compensate by building a much larger web in order to catch flies. For such a minute brain, the OW spider can be pretty clever when it comes to procuring its favorite meal.

Have you ever witnessed a bug being consumed by a spider while the bug was helplessly stuck to the spider’s web?