Web Structure and Silk Spinning Apparatus Morphology of Uloborus walckenaerius Latreille 1806 (Araneae, Uloboridae) Spider.

The web-building skills of spiders made them strong from the evolutionary aspect. Spider webs are used in hunting, building nests, setting traps, and movement. The structure of web architecture, that of adhesive materials being produced, and that of cribellate offer important clues in order to understand their hunting behaviors. Spiders have different silk-spinning apparatuses, allowing them to produce different types of silk fibrils. While some spider species rely on webs for survival in nature, others can survive without them. Even though basic taxonomic features remain constant, the silk-spinning apparatuses of spiders might be subjected to adaptive variations. In the present study, the structural organization of the silk-spinning apparatus and the web architecture of the web-maker spider Uloborus walckenaerius Latreille, 1806 were observed by making use of scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The web structure of U. walckenaerius, the characteristics of the spinnerets, especially the posterior spinneret, and the arrangement of the spigots are reported in this study. Adaptations of the silk-spinning apparatus, which has provided an evolutionary success to U. walckenaerius, were also analyzed. It was determined that the web structure consisted of very fine nanofibers and, differing from other groups, there also were crimped silk fibrils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]