Saddened by this bitter outcome, the gods and goddess of Olympus decided to revive Arachne and turn her into the first spider. From this tale of folklore, scientists have taken the name Arachnida to represent a class of animals that we commonly call spiders. Despite what you may have heard, spiders are not insects but are more closely related to scorpions and ticks. Unlike insects that have 6 legs, spiders have 8. But what really sets spiders apart is their ability to spin webbing or silk.
Spiders create silk with the help of tiny glands on their rear-ends.
In all, scientists have discovered 7 different types of glands that spiders can possess. No spider possesses all 7 types but some species have as many as 4. What is interesting, is that each type produces a different kind of silk. Like having different nozzle attachments on your showerhead, a spider is able to pick and chose the type of silk to weave from sticky to non-sticky, fluffy to smooth. Regardless of the type, all of these glands produce silk the same way.