Here comes autumn. Quiet and clear "Indian summer" will come soon - every autumn an ​​anticyclone brings us the warmth of the Mediterranean. During this period of time, the air becomes especially clean and transparent, and cobwebs begin to fly everywhere.

It's time to study them.

You will need:

- Black or dark blue cardboard

- Scissors

- Hair fixation spray

- gardening gloves

- A good helper (for example, it could be your friend or parents)

Experience:

First, be sure to read something about the spiders that are found in your area. Some of them may be poisonous. It is better not to touch such spiders and their web. The main types of webs are concentric, triangular and fine-meshed. poisonous spiders usually weave a concentric web.

1. Choose a suitable web. If you see a spider, try to identify it. Gently drive the spider away with a thin twig or twig. Then, wearing gloves, bring the black paper to the back of the web. An assistant with scissors and hairspray should be nearby.

2. Gently spraying varnish on the web and paper, you need to cut the main threads holding the web.

3. Fix the web with varnish and leave overnight to dry.

Advice:if there is no hairspray, then you can take "velvet" paper and carefully place a web on it.

Result:

The web on paper should be beautiful and clear. Separate parts of the web can be carefully examined with a magnifying glass.

Explanation:

Over millions of years, spiders have learned to weave webs of various patterns. Each web is tailored to the spider's living conditions and best suited to its favorite food. The spider begins to weave a web from its main parts - axial threads and fastening threads. Then he fills the gaps between the main threads with a mesh of thinner threads. The threads of the web are formed in special body on the belly of the spider.

All collected webs can be placed in frames under glass and write where they were found. And if you add some dry leaves, flowers to the cardboard, you can get a beautiful panel.

Do you know?

1. The web is very stable, very durable and very strong. It is stronger than silk, stronger than any synthetic fiber, and stronger than steel wire. If you spin a rope as thick as a pencil lead from the web of a spider-cross, then in order to break it, you need a load of about 250 kilograms, that is, you can hang a small cow on such a rope. On a silk rope of the same thickness, only 35 kilograms can be hung, on a nylon one - about 50-60, and a little more on a steel wire.

2. In 1973 American astronauts on Board space station Skylab took two cross-spiders. Arabella and Anita, as the spiders were called, each separately, weaved several nets in weightlessness, almost the same as on Earth. In the first web made, there were differences - the wrong cells, but when weaving the second and third spiders adapted to the new conditions and constructed quite ordinary trapping nets.

Interestingly, the idea of ​​this experiment belongs to the American schoolgirl Judith Miles. She also took part in the development and study of the results of the experiment.

The material was prepared based on the book by Glen Veccione "Do it yourself! 100 most interesting independent scientific projects"

Olga Tretyakova
Watching a spider in the fall with older preschool children.

Target:

1. Continue to form children's ideas about the diversity of insects.

2. Learn to establish links between the features of the structure and the mode of movement.

3. Activate dictionary by topic: abdomen, clings, flies, larva.

4. Raise interest in insects, respect for them.

Note: observation can be carried out both on the territory kindergarten, as well as beyond. Preferably in groups

Observation progress.

Guys, today I want to introduce you to how some insects prepare for winter. Do you want to know about it? Let's very quietly part the leaves that have fallen to the ground. What do you see there? (Answers 2 - 3 children) You correctly noted that there are adult insects here, but you can still see their larvae. Insects, like bears, hibernate. They hide under the leaves, in the cracks and crevices of the bark on the trees and hibernate there.

So, who is hiding under the foliage and in the crevices of the bark? (Answers of children - larvae, adult insects)

But that is not all. Take a close look at the branches shrubs, fences, what do you see there? Have you noticed anything unusual? (Answers 2 - 3 children)

Guys, I want to tell you a riddle “The sieve is hanging not twisted by hand”. What do you think it is? (Answers 2 - 3 children) That's right, this is a web, that's what we see with you on the tops of plants, on tree branches, on fences and various buildings.

Guys, and the web is whose house? (Answers 2 - 3 children)

Yes, they build a web spiders, in the summer with the help of a web they catch their food, but in autumn, the web helps spiders find a place for hibernation. Spiders climb onto plant branches, fences, stick to them with their abdomen and release a cobweb. When the wind blows, the packs unhook and fly on the web until it clings to something. So they are looking for a place to winter.

Do you remember from which places the spiders go on a trip? (Answers 2 - 3 children)

Let's let's observe how the wind will carry the spider with its cobweb.

Did you like it watch the spiders? (Answers 2 - 3 children) I want to ask you, if today on the site, when you walk, you see some more insects that have not yet fallen asleep, watch them and then tell us what you learned. Agreed?

What my readers did just fine! It really is a web!

It belongs to the most commonly found in homes, centipede spider(Pholcus phalangioides). Light beige spiders with an oblong abdomen and very long legs. These are web spiders that weave an absolutely chaotic web, devoid of pronounced stickiness, but due to their confusion, it keeps the victim well. And I found such a web in the secluded corners of the loggia, and I placed it under a microscope.


Since last year, I have been thinking about writing about the autumn movements of spiders. I had a small dreamer to film the flight of a spider on video, but somehow it didn’t work out this year. So next year should be lucky.

Now outside the window the wind rips off the last autumn leaves that still hold on to their native branches, not wanting to leave them. And the memories of the Indian summer are still alive in the heart. On a warm sunny and windy day in September, and sometimes in early October, the branches of shrubs are covered with thin threads of transparent silver cobwebs.

These are amazing aerodynamic devices that allow spiders to settle. Namely, the end of summer and autumn are marked by spiders with a massive release of small spiders from parental cocoons, and they need to spread in order to avoid competition with each other.

But how to do this if you are an eight-legged invertebrate, born to crawl, and nature does not rely on wings by definition?

The wind comes to the aid of the spiders and their wonderful spider warts, which once had abdominal legs in their distant ancestors, and now have changed into factories for the production of the most durable thread in nature - cobwebs.

Here the baby spider begins to produce a web that stretches from several spider warts, and deftly attaches it to a twig, runs back 10 centimeters.

And then it raises its abdomen higher, and allows the wind to carry the cobweb along with it. The wind honestly pulls the cobweb along with it, gradually forming a loop. The loop grows until it reaches a length of 10 centimeters, or even 20.

Then, the spider comes back and bites the thread that he fixed at the very beginning. The thread is picked up by the wind flow and continues to unwind from the spider web warts to a couple of meters or more.

And having caught a good gust of wind, the spider tightens its paws and is carried away on its cobweb to heaven. The spider in the course of the journey will move along the entire length of the web, changing its center of gravity.

Sometimes, several spiderlings that come out of the cocoon begin to produce a web not far from each other, then it gets confused, sticks together into lumps, and the poor fellows have to start over.

The web allows the spider to fly several kilometers, or several tens of meters, until it catches on some kind of obstacle. Therefore, the winners are those spiders that settle in open spaces.And if the cobweb caught on a twig, then the journey is over. Scraps of such threads, we most often see.


The spiders leave their parachute and go looking for their home. Not all spiders travel, but wolf spiders, small tenet spiders and side walkers. But cross-spiders do not travel in the fall, because they hibernate in a cocoon, and only emerge from it in the spring.

Spider looked around, and in the corner

Only a thread remained on the knot

He became bugs, calling different butterflies,

Jump through the string!

The cobweb came in handy for good.

It's time to end the story here.

Y. Lyubimtseva

Of course, the aerodynamic principle of flight on the web is used not only by spiders, but also by some plants, seeds, which are equipped with elongated tufted plumes. For example, feather grass or clematis straight.


Interestingly, the web is currently a very interesting object for nanotechnologists who are developing new modern materials.

Scientists compared the web of spiders of tenetnikov and the web of orb weavers. Although it is built from the same proteins (spidroins), and produced in a similar way, it turned out that the web behaves differently under the same conditions. For shaders, it acts as a viscoelastic fluid that is resistant to changes in humidity, while maintaining tackiness and elasticity.

Shadow web

On the other hand, the web behaves like a viscoelastic solid material, and changes its properties with increasing humidity: it becomes more elastic and loses its stickiness.

This difference in the trapping nets of tenetniks and orbs, as scientists believe, is due to the composition of the sticky drops of the web. Knowing the structural features of the web, it becomes possible to create a light and durable artificial material that changes its properties depending on the conditions.

Orb weaver's web

Scientists have created a polymer that is similar in properties to the web, and is able to condense liquid droplets from the fog, which allows you to get drinking water, collecting it with networks of new material, literally out of thin air!

And medicine, drew attention to the possibility of creating hemostatic and antiseptic biopolymer dressings, according to the principle of the structure of the web, which has these properties.

And he was wrong, the classic was wrong, arguing that he who was born to crawl cannot fly)))) I wish you successful autumn discoveries!If you liked it, share the post on social networks.

How to make a spider

Why does the web fly?

"Mother! Look - a spider !!! ”, - the son tells me. "Where, where is he?" I ask.

Indeed, a spider rides with us on the carousel, but not one, but two. Deftly descends along an invisible thread, then up, then down.

When the wind blows, the spider breaks down and hides its paws, the wind subsides, and the spider deftly moves its paws and rises up.

Then we went to the hill - and there is a cobweb with a spider, to the sandbox - here too! Looking more closely, it turned out that even dad has a cobweb!!! Or maybe our dad is a spider?)))

And then the question arose why does the web fly in autumn? In the summer you don't see this phenomenon very often.

It turns out that in the autumn of insects, which means food, it becomes less. So that the spiders do not have to starve and not eat each other (and they are capable of this), they, like on a carpet - an airplane, fly from place to place, in search of food. There is no one to follow the old web - to correct, glue, and it flies away without a master.

And yet, autumn is the breeding season for spiders. Females make egg sacs out of the web. And in order for this to happen, the males go on long journeys on the web.

Very interesting article on web flight.

My son was very impressed with the flying web. He went home, taking a promise from me to make a spider. This is how our theme was born. Almost spontaneously - I had to dig a little on the Internet.

We made a riddle:

He does not sit idle

Making a fly net.

This cute old man

Dexterous black ... (spider)

Played with "real" spiders.

Stretched fingers:

The spider walked on a branch, And the kids followed him.	One of the handles (or the hand of an adult) is a twig. We pull it forward, fingers spread out. The second pen is a spider that walks "on a branch". "Spider" runs on the forearm, and then on the shoulder.
Rain from the sky suddenly poured,	The brushes are freely lowered, we perform a shaking movement (rain).
Washed the spiders to the ground.	We clap our hands on our knees.
The sun began to warm	The palms are pressed to each other with the sides, the fingers are spread apart, we shake our hands (the sun is shining)
The spider crawls again	Actions as in the first verse
And all the children crawl after him, To walk on a branch.	- "Spiders" crawl on the head. E. Zheleznova

And we started crafting.

We took ready-made cobwebs - paper plates on which a cobweb is drawn with a marker. Material for application: leaves, a circle of colored paper, maple planes, glue and plasticine.

A midge flew into our web, but, apparently, so that the spider would not eat it, the daughter began to feed the spider with something tasty (red pieces of plasticine at the bottom right).

In the morning, in a hurry, we had such a house for spiders, with a cobweb in the corner. The child happily picked up the game and developed the plot, as far as his imagination.

Spiders drove into the forest in cars, collecting leaves and acorns for food. When they got tired, they crawled to rest in the web. And in cars, their familiar flies and insects came to visit them.

And one more piece. Joint creativity of children. On one of the "watercolor" evenings, Rostislav drew a web, and a day later we finished painting the inhabitants.

What we did:

1. We draw a web with watercolor paint - this is the bottom sheet, the basis for the application.

2. Spiders were painted with handprints, it is very simple and the children like it.

3. When the palms were dry, I cut them out along the contour.

4. The eyes were made of plasticine, beautiful spots were added.

5. They glued the finished spider onto the web.

The craft was not done at once, but with breaks for rest.

IN Lately We do not have planned thematic classes. We play exclusively spontaneously, or with ten minutes of preparation. Preference is given to a subject game with a simple plot.

Why it is so important to play with a child, and not just give educational activities under the guise of a game, I will tell you next time.

I wish you pleasant games with your kids!

In warm sunny days September, a lot of interesting things can be seen in the forest and in the field. And the first thing that catches your eye these days is the web.

Cobwebs are everywhere: on the bush, on the hedges, on the stubble, on the mowed meadow, on the grass. Everywhere lie now separate, now strayed into flakes, the threads of the cobweb.

A lot of cobwebs are in the air. Sometimes whole clouds of it float in the wind, shimmer in the sun.

Catch a few cobwebs with your hand. There is one cobweb descending from a height ... Failure! The lower end of the web suddenly rose, and the whole web flew up. It was like running away from an outstretched hand. Caught - an empty cobweb. I caught another - a tiny spider on the cobweb. Ah, where is he? Again the cobweb "ran away" from the hand.

Did the spider manage to climb up? Of course not. He just broke away from the cobweb and went down to the ground. And the web lost its cargo and quickly took off.

There are so many flying spiders in autumn that the "flying web" is one of characteristic features"Indian summer".

On clear autumn days, on fences, on the railings of bridges, on lonely bushes, sedges, and reeds, you can see tiny spiders preparing to fly.

How and why do these spiders fly?

Having climbed higher, the spider, first of all, makes supporting threads. It tightly presses the end of the abdomen with arachnoid warts to the surface of the platform on which it is located. Conducts several short transverse threads. Having made them, the spider runs to the lee side of the site, attaches the tip of the cobweb here and hurries back.

The wind picks up the web, pulls it. The spider clings tightly with its paws to the supporting threads and gradually releases the thread.

The wind blows - the web stretches, it becomes longer and longer. The web loop is blown by the wind.

When this loop reaches ten to fifteen centimeters in length, the spider runs to the edge of the site and bites the web thread here. The web flies into the air at one end, while the other remains connected to the spider's abdomen. getting stronger and stronger wind stretches the web, which the spider continues to release.

The thread grows and grows. Finally, the spider can no longer stay on its site: the web has become so long that the wind is pulling it.

The spider unhooks from the support threads and simultaneously tightens all eight legs. A gust of wind - and the web takes off, taking with it a tiny pilot.

Two or three meters of spider web is enough to keep a crumb of a spider in the air.

The flight has begun.

The spider can always go down. To do this, he only needs to lengthen the cobweb - to release a new portion of the thread. Running across the cobweb, he changes the "center of gravity", and the cobweb either rises or falls.

It is not always possible for a spider to immediately successfully release a cobweb and fly away. It happens that the web gets tangled, it happens that it catches on something. Sometimes the spider tries to take off several times - and everything is unsuccessful.

Eventually, he will fly.

In especially convenient places, sometimes dozens of spiders immediately prepare for flight. Often their cobwebs are confused, and none of the spiders can rise into the air. Then they bite the cobwebs and begin to release new threads. And tangled cobwebs form flakes or knotty shreds, which are often seen on fences and bushes. Not all spiders fly on a cobweb in autumn. Usually young wolf spiders, side walkers and small types of tenetniks fly.

Gossamer flight is a journey of youth. Just in time for autumn, spiders that have recently hatched from eggs grow up. They hatched immediately in a bunch, they need to settle: predators need space. Spiders don't walk well. Air travel is an excellent means of relocation.

Particularly grandiose are the flights of spiders in South America. Here in autumn the sky sometimes seems to be covered with cobwebs: so many spiders fly.

Spiders can fly for a long time, and sometimes they fly very far. There are cases when spiders were caught tens of kilometers from the coast, in the open sea, where the wind brought their cobwebs.