spidersilk…
In the Stone Dance I ‘invented’ textiles woven from spidersilk in analogy with that produced, in our own world, from silkworms… My friend Ang has brought to my attention that such textiles actually exist!!!
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It’s amazing how Mother Gaia still manages to surprise us after all the millions of years we’ve been here. I’m a vegetarian myself so it was funny to learn about this spider ^^ The spidersilk is just one fine example of how we can take good materials from nature without killing or abusing the animals that provide them. We still have a lot to learn 🙂
well… if a spider can do it, then we’ve no excuse! *grin*
Wouldn’t it be sticky?
What if you got tangled up in a spider-silk coat and couldn’t get out?
What if the spider came back to find you stuck there?
Talking of spiders…
I heard on R4 today that there is a species of vegetarian spider! It doesn’t spin webs (no need) and doesn’t eat it’s mate after sex (apparently a time honoured spider tradition) How civilised.
If you watch the video associated with the link, then there is some mention of it being slightly sticky… However, spiders are capable of making different kinds of silk. The sticky kind is only used on part of their webs… Clearly, if all of it was sticky, every spider would quickly get into a tangle. Also, consider that silkworm silk is also sticky – at least initially – which is how it makes its cocoon…
Vegetarian spider? hmmmmmmmm… We need PROOF!! :O)
and here is that proof – who would have believed it?!
fascinating!
the natural color beeing gold…
hmmm… I assumed that it was dyed… One of the things that fascinated me most was the man in the video describing how it felt… a unique feeling, he said – I’d LOVE to feel it – this has subtly changed my understanding of the first chapter of The Third God…
…After the spiders were collected, those 70 people that helped find them were given very tiny whips to spur those spiders on with…
The spider on your wall has HAIRY LEGS! I don’t like to see them in close up.
yes… I didn’t see that detail, my camera did… when I enlarged it, I was rather shocked… Still, I’m happy to share my house with these monsters…
I used to have a fear of spiders, but the fear went away when I came to realize that the origin of it was, when I was perhaps 3-4, my mother, making a bed, found a spider among the sheets and screamed… This was in Carcavelos in Portugal – maybe the spiders in Portugal are even MORE monstrous *wide grin*