• by Sophie Kleber , February 10, 2010

Spiders are diverse: There are 40,000 species of spiders.versus 400 primates. And spiders are an old species as well, they've been around for 380 million years. All spiders make silk, but there are many kinds for many different purposes, and individual spiders can make different types of silk, as multiple fibers are made in the spider's spinneret (like a soda machine at Taco Bell's).

The stretchiest silk fiber is used for making the web, so prey doesn't bounce right off the web. The strongest spider silk is used to make the drag lines that attach their web to its surroundings and it's much tougher than carbon or nylon, which makes this silk very interesting for bio-technology.

Cheryl loves spider silk.