Spider gets Good Housekeeping award!

While I was taking pix of this golden orb-weaver spider (Nephila clavipes) at Fairchild Garden yesterday, a man gently threw a few tiny bits of trash (leaves, twigs) into her web, where they stuck. Immediately, she examined the nearest one and dropped it from the web, doing the same with the other pieces. She was not having any trash clutter up her nice, tidy web.

Years ago, I heard that the silk of this Nephila had been used as cross hairs for WW2 rifles, so for one of my son's dreaded middle school science projects, I helped him (hey, isn't that what all parents do?) design a plan to test the relative strength of spider webs. We  carefully gathered the dragline silk -- the silk that forms the web's structure -- of different species, including the golden orb-weaver. The silks were taped to a bar and lead fishing weights were attached until the silk snapped. I don't remember all the details, but the Nephila was vastly stronger than anything else, and I have a vague memory that we were able to attach 26 weights before it finally snapped.

It was a cool project. Feel free to use it!