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■ ODERN SOCIETY, concerned over conservation and efficient use of scarce resources, would do well to take in-spirafeioh froth ‘ the spider.

Not only do spiders work with incredible speed and accuracy -.to ■ construct and periodically renew their webs, but. an expert in spider beha vior poinis out, they do so w-i|lr,^: amazingly little waste of the stilt from which their food i^aps are made.

Dr. .jPfeter N. Witt of j’%alfeigh, N.C.. says it is pointless to study either the web without the spider or the spider without the web, . Bu t. studying the spider-web unit, Wilt , says, can give interesting insights into the behavior of higher animals, possibly-, even including beings.

Practically anything said about spiders as a generalization tiirns out to be wrong.

Only about 5,000 of 30,000 spider Species make food traps of the ‘ familiar spider-web pattern, and while most spiders are solitary, there’are a few species that live together in colonies as large as 100.000 individuals.

Fascinating Facts

Comparatively recent studies of spiders have stripped these ciea? lures of a lot of the folklore that* has surrounded them, Witt says. But at the same time, systeniätf£ investigation has revealed fabout them some facts that are ever£b^? ■as^asoihating” as (the’ rhyths> t$raf|

have been demolished.;

For instance, a common spider species that rebuilds its web every day or so takes only about 20 min– \ti;tes to construct theihtricate .pattern and recycles the Building material with close to ;1’00 percent efficiency.

Scientists have been able to show, by radioactive t-fgging of. an amino acid usediinkt-h# WejBls silk, that a spider can spih^tomorrow’s web with silk that i’fe;ch<|wed up and digested while reworking its web v today’

The actual ‘‘weaving”; process takes place at a speed of close to 1,000 operations a minute and goes on so rapidly that high-speed motion-picture photography was required before stop-action analysis of the web-wea ving procedure was possible.

Although individual web-weaving species and individual spiders within these species-prefer to build their own webs, new spiders can be introduced to old webs and cheerfully take them over for their own.

Among solitary spiders, the female is the dominant influence, -.hiiildjng the web, lying in wait for . preys and tofecating in₍e .mucu smaller ma le ‘ltd breed.

The matriarchal spider usually dies after laying eggs, but long before the young are hatched. Thus, the next generation of solitar^ spi-i ders must be programmed completely- for life /when

^But among the fape .spieeies of -.spiders there «seems ito-jbe a. good^.bitip’f interaction be-MwiSjin generations, including even nurturing and what may be a form of Induction “by adults. Witt says

⁵    ^ ä    Mexiiean    sspe-

cies -of communal¹‘ spider ‘has- a

’hals ^disturbed- -some ‘scientists as well¹ as non-scientists; according to %Wl o tfln’ this species* rtlie^young are fe,d’ a material regurgitated -by the adii-lt’-female. –

Witt is the scientist who seygRaJ years ago induced spiders to build bizarre webs by (doping thenv with ”/, various drugs suCh as “speed” {amphetamines} _v marijuana and LSD.

A drugged spider’s behavior deviates from the spider-norm in .much the sarfie way‘that atdirugged human being deviates from rational human activity.

Studies by other -scientists on several species of spiders that build

The Scientist

Has^Sjime^fye w . ,, . Information

their webs horizontally close, to the ground rather than vertically at. greater heights have indicated a .clear sense ⁴ of territoriality*!: hr “turf,” Witt, relates. In a given area, the distribution of spiders building webs is spaced to assure the greatest possible distance’between them.

C&fcer Designs

Although all spiders spin silk, not all build “orbital” (the familiar shape) or sheet webs. Witt has photos of various other kinds, including one that looks like a few segments of an orbital web without the rest of the criss-cross pattern.

This,’ he explains, was a qne-fime-bnly web built by a spider that then retreats to a distance and holds taut a slim filament attached to the web.

When an insect blunders into the web, the spider lets go the filament, whereupon the hapless prey finds itself neatly wrapped up in the sticky fabric, securely packaged for the spider to consume at leisure. ‘

An even more bizarre spider uses not a web, but a “weapon” much- like »a South American^, gau^; „ chd’s bjolä -S; a long, single strand, of.;Silk with^ra round, sticky glob .at-f the end. The spider twirls Its ‘ boläE until a moth is encountered and then reelsYn the moth for dinner.

Recent Fesearph, Witt says,, has,’ .disclosedjihat^the’glob-on the end*of the:, bola conta ins v^chemicaL.-a^