Spiders and walking on cobwebs

Factual Questions
1

Hi there

saving a daddy longleg y’day from “da spray” in our kid’s room, triggered a couple of Qs:

  • how can spiders walk on cobwebs, when other critter stick to it? … I assume some special hair or so … but would like a more def. answer
  • To what degree can spiders walk on foreign cobwebs? - of the same species … so a daddy longleg A … could he walk on daddy longleg B’s cobweb? … how about the cobweb of a different specie of spiders?

any thoughts?

2

First off, I don’t think daddy longlegs/harvestmen are spiders.

To your point, the radial lines are a different non-sticky silk than the circular lines.

3

Technically I believe cobwebs are older spider webs that are no longer used becasue they have lost their stickyness due to things like dust and other elements. So walking on them is not an issue for eith spiders or bugs becasue they can’t get caught in them.

4

do the sticky and non-sticky silk lines come out of separate orifices of the spider - or how does that work?

5

Separate glands, connected to the same outbound orifice - the spinnerets.

Lots of good basics here:

To start off for the O.P. there’s this:

There are seven types of silk glands, and no spider has all of them.

…

Each silk gland produces silk used for a different purpose: attachment silk, dragline, web frame, silk for wrapping, sperm webs, egg cocoons, and sticky silk.

6

thx, … a quality post!!!

7

Daddy Longlegs can refer to different arachnids (among other things).

One of which is a whole family of very common spiders., the other of which are your harvestmen.

8

As well as crane flies, in some places.

I’m team DLL = cellar spider.

9

Cool - I never experienced anything other than a harvestman referred to as a DLL.