You walk into one and it sticks on your face. You see them around the garden and sometimes in your house. Come along with me and find out. Here we find that spider silk is a fibrous protein that is secreted by a finger-like organ called a spinneret, located on the abdomen of the spider.
Spiders differ in the number of spinnerets, most having six but some have two or four.
The silk is secreted as a liquid that hardens or polymerizes as it is pulled out by the spider's legs. Now spiders do not produce just one type of silk. Seven different types of silks have been identified-each made by a specific silk gland and each having a distinct purpose. Oddly enough, no one spider has been found with all seven silk glands. For example, one gland manufactures silk for a drag-line, another silk to wrap prey and another silk to wrap eggs.