One day last week I felt energetic and decided it was time to clean out our basement. I was making great progress until I walked into a cobweb. The web stuck to my head (mostly my face) like glue. I went wild trying to remove the cobweb from my head and face.

Have you ever walked into a spider’s web? Do you remember whether you also went ballistic as you tried to wipe the web from your face? Throughout the years, Mary Alice — who is only 4 feet, 8 inches — paid five cents to our boys for each spiderweb they saw high on the walls in our home.

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a spiderweb and a cobweb? Perhaps you have believed that a cobweb forms randomly due to dust particles adhering to each other, however, a cobweb forms from an abandoned spider web. After a spider leaves its web, dust collects on the sticky silk, and it becomes a cobweb.

Spiders are responsible for those single strands of dust seen hanging from a cellar’s ceiling. Spiders use these single strands of silk for jumping or swinging from one place to another. This is known as ballooning. Usually these single strands aren’t noticed until dust has gathered on them.

Have you ever gone out into the garden early, on a summer morning when dew is on the ground and noticed the many spider webs, which were unnoticeable before the dew collected on the web?

Spiders have long been celebrated for spinning silk from their bodies. They belong to the class of animals known as arachnid, which comes from the Greek word Arachne, meaning spider. It commemorates the name of Arachne, a Lydian Princess, who became so accomplished in the art of weaving that she dared to challenge Athena to a test of skill. Arachne’s work was flawless but that of Athena was perfect beyond attainment of mere mortals.

Arachne was so humiliated that she attempted to hang herself, however the noose was loosened to become a cobweb and the maiden was changed into a spider and condemned to perpetual spinning.

Spider silk is 1/100th the size of a human hair and 100 times stronger than steel of the same size. Some of the threads stretch one-half their length before breaking. While the thinnest lines are only one-millionth of an inch wide and invisible to the human eye, other lines are much heavier. Steel can be stretched only 8% and nylon approximately 20%.

Spiderwebs are strong and will hold almost any large insect that becomes entangled in the web.

Orb weaving spiders make their webs at night and in the morning usually take them down. The spiders eat the silk, leaving only the base line to rebuild on. Each species builds its webs differently. For example, the funnel spider builds its web to look like a funnel.

Glands in the abdomen of the spider produce fluids that harden in the air and form silk. The outlets from these glands are at the end of the abdomen. The spinning organs of the spider are fingerlike appendages that are tipped with many tiny spinning tubes and a few large ones known as spigots. There are at least seven known distinct kinds of spider glands, which allow spiders to have the capability of producing various types of silk.

Compare the way spiders produce silk to the way silk is produced by insects. For example, silk comes from the mouth of a caterpillar.

Of all our small animal neighbors, spiders have been the most maligned. Many people fear spiders. Could the reason be that parents recite the Little Miss Muffet poem to their children?

During the autumn months, many spiders die after producing an egg sac, however there are adults that live throughout the winter months, mate in the spring and then die. Some spiders survive for two or more years. Although the young spiders are hatched when the weather becomes warmer, there are a few that are hatched from their eggs, during the fall or winter months; however, these spiderlings remain quietly inside the egg sac until spring and are seldom noticed.

After emerging from the egg sac, most species of spiderlings spin a dragline and balloon away. While still very tiny, spiderlings climb to either a branch, fencepost or other tall object, where they tilt their spinnerets up into the air. After a breeze pulls silk threads out of the spinnerets, these threads form a dragline. The spider is still very tiny and light at this time.

When the thread becomes long enough the wind suddenly plucks the thread upward, along with the spiderling at the other end, and carries them away. This works because the spiderling is so light, and its dragline is long enough to give both enough surface area for their weight.

Although the average female spider’s egg sac holds approximately 100 eggs, there are some large spiders that can produce a sac that holds as many as 2,000 eggs. Some spider females (wolf spider) protect their egg sacs until the spiderlings emerge, while other spider females attach the sacs to webs, plants or structures. There are even females that carry the egg sacs on their abdomens wherever they go. Some drag their egg sacs behind them and still other females are attached to their spinnerets.

For some very strange reason, Mary Alice had spider nightmares in which she would see a gigantic spider on the bedroom ceiling. This went on for many years, however the nightmares ended when we moved to Troy.

Hopefully, she won’t read this article.

Bill Bower is a retired Pennsylvania Game Commission Wildlife Officer. Read his blog and listen to his podcasts on the outdoors at www.onemaningreen.com.