Today, some military facilities still keep a semidomesticated black widow spider around to provide silk to repair the crosshairs in old instruments. Spider silk crosshairs, however, have largely been replaced with etched marks or metal filaments. Various societies have managed to collect enough spider silk to use. The ancient Greeks stanched bleeding wounds with cobwebs. Australian aborigines use the silk of a giant tropical spider for fishing lines, rubbing parts of the spider's body onto the silk to attract small fish, which become caught in the sticky silk when they bite the spider tidbits.
New Guinea natives fashion fish nets, head gear, and bags from spider silk.
Today, spider silk is attracting the attention of a range of researchers, including geneticists, protein biochemists, and materials scientists intent on understanding and replicating spider silk's unusual properties. Spider silk easily withstands low temperatures. The substance is a soluble fluid in the aqueous environment of a spider's abdomen, but it turns into an insoluble solid after it exits the body. Using webs Spiders use their silk in a variety of ways. Webs entice prey, silken nests enshroud eggs, and offspring tentatively venture from their webs, exploring beyond the nest yet still tethered to it by a lifeline.