Her name was Vena and she was a Wolf Spider living on a farm in Australia. Something amazing was going to happen to her about which she had no foreboding whatsoever. 

 It was early springtime and Vena had been carrying a silken eggsac full of tiny spiderlings for several weeks. A few days ago she had torn open the sac so that they could escape and clamber onto her back. Here they expected to stay for another week as their mother rested in her small, silk lined tunnel in the ground or jumped out of her hiding place to capture an insect for supper. She generally hunted at night and an observant human passerby might catch a glimpse of her green eyes in the moonlight. 

 It had been raining for days. Local birds were having a hard time finding insects or spiders to eat. Vena was safe in her tunnel but a bird was hovering overhead searching the area for something for his lunch. Vena with her family of spiderlings would be a tasty meal if only she would venture out. 

Now as the rain continued to pour down Vena sensed that something was about to happen that would put her and her family in danger. Something did happen. The local river overran its banks and the water spread across the farm fields right to where Vena was hiding. If she had to leave her tunnel the watching bird would surely see her and swoop down to snatch her up in his sharp beak.

That evening the flood water trickled down into the spider family's home and Vena and her spiderlings were forced out. They clambered up into the branches of a nearby bush. If Vena had been a human she would have been frightened but as far as we know spiders don't know fear.  So she sat on a branch and waited.

This is when a most unexpected thing started to happen. Vena's hundred or more tiny spiderlings left her back and started discharging thousands and thousands of strands of spider silk that caught in the late evening breeze and became tangled with the leaves and twigs of the bush to create a fragile, silvery shroud over the bush.

Vena's spiderlings were no ordinary spiderlings and their silk no ordinary silk. The fine filaments of their strange silk were not smooth like spider silk should be. So, when the morning light brought the bird back and he hovered overhead looking for the landmarks he had seen before, he did not see the bush. The silken shroud over the bush would not have kept the spider family safe for long but the bush seemed to have disappeared. 

Something had happened to change the structure of the silk spun by Vena's children. As the sunlight shone down on the bush these threads of strange silk reflected light rays in such a way that they did not shine from the bush into the eyes of the watching bird. This amazing, fragile, silvery shroud had made itself and the bush invisible.

In their invisible hiding place Vena and her family waited patiently until the flood receded and they could return to their home. Here the spiderlings created a silken canopy over the entrance to their tiny tunnel so that they could pounce on passing prey without being seen.

So, what happened to these strange spiderlings? What else was made out of their amazing silk. Maybe you can think of something?

© 2012