Original air date: 7 December 2005
Below is a more detailed look at the outline the contents of this programme
Selected sequences
Construction of the web
Several steps in constructing a spider web
Catching a prey in the web is a major challenge. As the prey (17’02) gets entangled the web has to give in to a certain degree but not too much. It also has to have sticky beads of glue (top right) that give in as the web stretches, a bead (bottom left) stretches to make the web elastic (bottom right, 17’25).
Final words
“Ingenious though we are, we’ve not yet been able to invent anything as strong, as light or as elastic as silk.”
Digging deeper, recent scientific discovery
These final words of Attenborough’s were quite true at the time the series was produced. It seems not until almost two decades later (2024) that scientists may have managed to produce silk in a similar way to how spiders do it.
It seems also quite interesting that spiders tend to not construct a more robust web than needed depending on the circumstances. The same species would build a more robust one where the environment demands it, heavier rainfall or closer to a waterfall – presumably.