Malagasy Spiders Spin the World's Toughest Biological Material - ScienceNOW - 0 views
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Like an engineer accounting for a skyscraper swaying in the wind, Madagascar's Darwin's bark spider (Caerostris darwini) spins enormous, river-spanning webs that stretch and contract as the trees to which they're anchored bend this way and that. A new study finds that this spider's silk is the toughest biomaterial yet discovered.
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The spiders' colossal orb webs can span up to 2.8 square meters and are anchored by threads as long as 25 meters.
