Revealed

A misty morning - found this web, which measures 60 x 60 cm, in amongst the plants - one of many revealed webs.

Every web begins with a single thread, which forms the basis of the rest of the structure. To establish this bridge, the spider climbs to a suitable starting point (up a tree branch, for example) and releases a length of thread into the wind. With any luck, the free end of the thread will catch onto another branch. If the spider feels that the thread has caught onto something, it cinches up the silk and attaches the thread to the starting point.

It walks across the thread, releasing a looser thread below the first one. It attaches this thread on both ends and climbs to its centre. The looser strand sags downward, forming a V-shape. The spider lowers itself from this point, to form a Y-shape. This forms the core support structure of the web.

The spider easily grips the thin threads with special serrated claws, a smooth hook and a series of barbed hairs on the end of its legs. As it walks along the initial structural threads, it lays more frame threads between various anchor points. Then it starts laying out radius threads from the centre of the web to the frames. The spider does not coat the frame and radius threads with sticky material, since it needs to walk across them to get around the web.

After building all the radius threads, the spider lays more non-stick silk to form an auxiliary spiral, extending from the centre of the web to the outer edge of the web. The spider then spirals in on the web, laying out sticky thread and using the auxiliary spiral as a reference. The spider eats up the auxiliary spiral as it lays out the sticky spiral, resulting in a web with non-sticky radius threads, for getting around, and a sticky spiral for catching bugs.