Nocturnal Scafolding
On my evening dog walk I saw a large spider web and I decided to take a closet look. Using my cell phone as a flashlight I discovered the large female Nephila clavipes (banana or golden orb spider) who had constructed the web, though she was in the process of de-constructing it then. Many spiders rebuild their webs daily and they have a very waste not want not philosophy about the silk. They eat the web and recycle the silk to make building a new one less metabolically expensive (webs comprise a lot of protein after all). She was busily chewing through the main anchoring line when I found her and before long it snapped and the whole structure went TWANG! She maintained her grip on both parts however. One hind leg grasped a thin line that she had just produced for the purpose of anchoring her to the main part of the web and her forelegs maintained their grip on the bit of the web that had originally anchored the web to a tree. She formed a living bridge holding the whole together. I would have stayed and watched her longer but it was growing late and Castor was starting to grow impatient. In dog minutes this had worked out to a very boring eternity. But for me it was one of those amazing things that go on all around but which we rarely get a glimpse into.