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?
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.
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.