[paul.fr]

I guess this may have been asked before...Neil, did you?...but I could not find it when searching.

so why don't spiders stick to their own webs?

[chris]

Great question. The simple answer is that not all of the strands on a web are sticky and the spider knows which ones and avoids treading on them.

This is because webs employ several different types of silk ranging from the strong stuff that acts as the anchor frame to the stretchy sticky stuff that acts as the trap. The glue is also not a continuous layer on the silk. It is desposited as tiny blobs, which the spider delicately treads between.

Chris

[elegantlywasted]

Another Spider related question:

How does spidey begin the web? I've noticed they form a link between two objects, but how do they get from A to B? Are they not susceptable to gravity?

[another_someone]

Another Spider related question:

How does spidey begin the web? I've noticed they form a link between two objects, but how do they get from A to B? Are they not susceptable to gravity?

I don't know the strict answer to this, but there are many different shapes of spiders web, so I doubt the answer is the same for every spider.

Some spider can drift in the wind, so this may be a factor.  Others can jump (but I am not sure if jumping spiders have webs or not).  Another possibility is that rather than the spider drifting in the wind, they allow the thread to drift in the wind until it sticks to something.  Or they can just walk around the periphery and carry their thread with them.

As I said, I doubt one answer fits for every spider.