The animal featured on the cover of Making TeX Work is the European garden spider. Garden spiders are orb weavers, known for their intricate orb-shaped webs. Without training from adults, even the tiniest just-hatched spiderlings are able to spin silk and weave webs. Another orb weaver, nephila , builds an extremely thick and strong web, up to eight feet in diameter. Spiders produce silk from glands called spinnerets.
Some spiders even produce an ultraviolet silk to attract insects.
Spider silk, a super protein that hardens as it is stretched from the spinnerets, may look delicate but it is unbelievably tough. The relative tension necessary to break it is far greater than for steel. When finished with the construction of its web, the garden spider will often go to the center, hang upside down, and wait for a flying or jumping insect to become ensnared. Having poor eyesight, orb weavers rely on a highly-developed sense of touch. When an insect becomes caught in the web and struggles, the spider is alerted by the vibrations.