Spindley, brindley spiders! September 1, 2009

So…. Orb Weavers. We looked up lots o’ info today on the little buggers with some shocking outcomes.

The Encyclopedia Americana has…mmm… like, 5 sentences on them. And most of it is how they build their web… See–>    “A spider of the Family Argiopidae, most familiarly represented by the garden spiders. These spiders build spiral webs that lie in a single plane. Typically, the web is made by first setting up a radial framework of dry silk strung between the branches of a plant. The spider then spins spiral lines of sticky silk that catches the spider’s prey. For an illustration of the building of an Orb web, see under SPIDER.”

The Encyclopedia Britannica had even less, unless you wanted to pay for the premium content.

Here’s the page

“Any spider of the family Araneidae (Argiopidae or Epeiridae) of the order Araneida, a large and widely distributed group noted for their orb-shaped webs. More than 2,500 species are known.”

Wikipedia, on teh other hand, is the s#!%!!!! It had so much information. Although there is no proof teh article is acurate, there is discussion about the relevance of the information, the acuracy of the information, and the detail given to each section.

“The orb-weaver spiders (family Araneidae) are the builders of spiral wheel-shaped webs often found in gardens, fields and forests. Their common name is taken from the round shape of this typical web. Orb-weavers have eight similar eyes, legs hairy or spiny and no stridulating organs. The family is cosmopolitan, including many well-known large or brightly colored garden spiders. There are more than 2,800 species in over 160 genera worldwide..blah blah blah… for ever“ Ok,so maybe not the blah blah blah, but you get the picture.

Here’s the Page

All in all, cool spider, cool search, and Wiki does it better. (mmm hmmm)

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