The Garden Spider

Hi, my name is Grace from Blotting Often, and today I am going to write about the Garden Spider, aka Epeira.  The picture below is of a Garden Spider on its web.  

  

     

     The web by itself is not sticky, but the spider infuses stickiness into it because the web is hollow.  If the spider is making a web in mist it will not add the stickiness because the web will fall apart. Also, the web is water absorbent and it will fall apart if it is too wet. By this time you, Mom, may think that its water absorbency is not a good thing, but in the summer it is very helpful because it absorbs the water that is in the air.  This keeps the web from getting too brittle and falling apart.  The spider usually stays in the middle of its web where it is not sticky, although it can go on the sticky part as well.  The spider also has oil on its feet so that it won`t stick to its web.