关于蜘蛛丝的迷人事实

关于蜘蛛丝的迷人事实

Spiderwebs rarely make a good first impression. Even if you aren't one of the insects they're designed to capture, a sudden coating of silk on your face can be annoying, and possibly alarming if you don't know where the spider ended up.

蜘蛛网很少能给人留下好的第一印象。即使你不是它们设计用来捕捉的昆虫之一，突然在你脸上覆盖一层蛛丝也会让你感到厌烦，如果你不知道蜘蛛最终去了哪里，可能还会让你感到恐慌。

After centuries of trying to harness the incredible properties of spider silk, scientists are finally starting to unravel some of its secrets. (Photo: Krasimir Matarov/Shutterstock)

Here's a closer look at what makes spider silk so spectacular, both as a marvel of biology and a treasure trove of biomimicry:

让我们来仔细看看是什么让蜘蛛丝如此壮观，既是生物学上的奇迹，也是仿生学的宝库:

1. Spider silk is stronger by weight than steel.

蜘蛛丝的重量比钢重

Spider silk must be not just sticky, but also strong and stretchy to prevent escapes. (Photo: Nechaevkon/Shutterstock)

Spider silk is lighter than cotton and up to 1,000 times thinner than human hair, yet it's also incredibly strong for such a wispy material. This outsized strength is vital for spiders, who need their silk to withstand an array of destructive forces, from the frantic flapping of trapped insects to powerful blasts of wind and rain.

蜘蛛丝比棉花轻，比人的头发还要细1000倍，但对于这种纤细的材料来说，它的强度也令人难以置信。这种巨大的力量对蜘蛛来说是至关重要的，蜘蛛需要它们的蛛丝来承受一系列的破坏力，从被困昆虫疯狂的拍打到狂风暴雨。

2. Spider silk is surprisingly diverse.

蛛丝出奇地多样化

A large orb weaver wraps up its prey with swathing silk in Australia. (Photo: Graham Winterflood [CC BY-SA 2.0]/Flickr)

Unlike silk-making insects, which tend to produce only one kind of silk, spiders make many varieties, each specialized for its own range of purposes. No one is sure how many types exist, as biologist and spider-silk expert Cheryl Hayashi recently told the Associated Press, but researchers have identified several basic categories of spider silk, each produced by a different silk gland. An individual spider can typically make at least three or four kinds of silk, and some orb weavers can make seven.

蛛丝昆虫一般只生产一种蛛丝，而蜘蛛则不同，蜘蛛有很多种类，每一种都有其特定的用途。正如生物学家兼蜘蛛丝专家谢丽尔·哈亚希最近告诉美联社的那样，没有人知道有多少种类的蜘蛛丝存在，但研究人员已经确定了几种蜘蛛丝的基本类别，每种蛛丝都是由不同的丝腺产生的。一只蜘蛛通常能织出至少三到四种蛛丝，而一些圆蛛能织出七种蛛丝。

3. Spiders make silk kites, slingshots, submarines and more.

蜘蛛可以在风筝、弹弓、潜水艇等等地方安家

A baby goldenrod crab spider balloons from a cardoon flower petal. (Photo: thatmacroguy/Shutterstock)

Silk gives spiders a wide range of housing options, from iconic spiral webs to tubes, funnels, trap doors and even submarines. The latter are mostly built by semiaquatic species like the beach-dwelling Bob Marley spider, which makes air chambers to ride out high tide, but there is one known species — the diving bell spider — that spends almost its entire life underwater.

蛛丝为蜘蛛提供了广泛的居住选择，从标志性的螺旋网到管道、漏斗、活板门，甚至潜水艇。后者大多是由半水生物种建造的，比如住在海滩上的鲍勃马利蜘蛛，它能让空气室安然度过涨潮，但有一种已知的物种——潜水钟形蜘蛛——几乎一生都生活在水下。

4. Silk goes from liquid to solid as it leaves a spider's body.

当丝离开蜘蛛的身体时，它会从液体变成固体。

The magic of spider silk comes partly from the way a spider spins it. (Photo: Ian Fletcher/Shutterstock)

Silk glands hold a fluid known as "spinning dope," with proteins called spidroins arranged in a liquid crystalline solution. This travels via tiny tubes from the silk gland to the spinneret, where the proteins start to align and partly solidify the dope.

丝腺中含有一种叫做“纺丝原液”的液体，其中含有一种叫做蜘蛛蛋白的蛋白质，它们排列在液晶溶液中。它通过细小的管道从丝腺传递到吐丝器，在吐丝器中，蛋白质开始排列部分凝固粘稠物。

5. Some spiders replace their webs daily, but recycle the silk.

有些蜘蛛每天换网，但回收蛛丝。

A spiny-backed orb weaver works on its web in Marietta, Georgia. (Photo: Erin Cogswell/Shutterstock)

Orb weavers tend to build their iconic webs in relatively open areas, which boosts their chances of catching prey — and their chances of sustaining web damage. These spiders often replace their webs every day, sometimes even if they still seem perfectly fine, before spending their evenings waiting for prey.

圆球编织者倾向于在相对开阔的区域建立它们标志性的网，这增加了他们捕捉猎物的机会，也增加了它们维持网络破坏的机会。这些蜘蛛通常每天都要换网，有时甚至在晚上等待猎物之前，它们看起来还很健康。

6. Spiders 'tune' and pluck their silk like a guitar.

蜘蛛会“调音”，像弹吉他一样弹丝。

Spiders can learn a lot from even the slightest vibrations in their webs. (Photo: Khanistha Sridonchan/Shutterstock)

Anyone who has watched a spider in her web knows she pays close attention to even slight vibrations, which might indicate trapped prey. In recent years, however, scientists have found this is a lot more complex than it looks.

任何看过蜘蛛织网的人都知道，她会密切注意哪怕是轻微的震动，这可能意味着被困住的猎物。然而，近年来，科学家们发现这比看上去要复杂得多。

7. Some spider silk seems to have antimicrobial properties.

有些蜘蛛丝似乎有抗菌的特性。

Tegenaria domestica, known as the common house spider or barn funnel weaver, produces silk that inhibits growth in certain kinds of bacteria. (Photo: John A. Anderson/Shutterstock)

This kind of interest is hardly new, as humans have been co-opting spider silk for thousands of years. Polynesian anglers have long relied on its toughness to help them catch fish, for example, a method still used in some places. Ancient Greek and Roman soldiers used cobwebs to stop wounds from bleeding, while people in the Carpathian Mountains treated wounds with the silk tubes of purseweb spiders.

这种兴趣并不新鲜，因为人类已经选择蜘蛛丝几千年了。例如，玻利尼西亚垂钓者长期以来一直依靠它的韧性来捕鱼，这种方法在一些地方仍在使用。古希腊和古罗马士兵用蜘蛛网来防止伤口流血，而喀尔巴阡山脉的人们则用织网蜘蛛的丝管来治疗伤口。

8. A golden age of spider silk might finally be near.

蜘蛛丝的黄金时代可能终于到来了。

This cape was hand-embroidered from the silk of 1.2 million golden orb-weaver spiders, a process that took eight years. The bright yellow color is reportedly the natural color of the spiders' silk. (Photo: Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

Despite our long fascination with spider silk, humans have also struggled to harness its powers on a larger scale. We've had trouble farming spiders like we do with silkworms, partly due to the territorial and sometimes cannibalistic nature of its creators.

尽管我们对蜘蛛丝有着长久的迷恋，但人类也一直在努力在更大范围内利用蜘蛛丝的力量。我们在饲养蜘蛛方面遇到了困难，就像饲养蚕一样，部分原因是蜘蛛的领地意识，有时甚至是同类相食的天性。

Beads of spider glue cling to a strand of capture-spiral silk. (Photo: Sarah Stellwagen [CC BY-ND 4.0]/The Conversation)

Now, some 300 million years after the dawn of spiders, their silk and glue has also captured something else: our imagination. And if spiders can help us learn to make tougher fabrics, better bandages, safer pest control and other advances, maybe we can even forgive them for weaving all those webs at face level.

现在，在蜘蛛出现大约3亿年之后，它们的蛛丝和胶水也抓住了另一个东西:我们的想象力。如果蜘蛛能帮助我们学会制作更结实的织物，更好的绷带，更安全的害虫控制和其他先进技术，也许我们甚至可以原谅它们在脸上织那么多网。