A new book acquired by the Thammasat University Library should be useful to all TU students who are interested in biology, natural history, and related fields.
Spiders of the World: A Natural History may not be for everyone, since many people prefer not to think about spiders at all.
As many TU students know, spiders are not insects, because insects usually have six legs. Spiders are arachnids, a class of animals that usually has eight jointed legs.
Anyone who finds them unpleasant and does not care whether they are insects or arachnids might keep in mind that classifying animals makes it much easier to understand how they behave.
Spiders of the World: A Natural History is shelved in the General Stacks of the Puey Ungphakorn Library, Rangsit campus.
The TU Library collection includes some other volumes about spiders as well.
We learn that although a few species have venom that is dangerous to humans, a number of other spiders provide potentially useful things for people. For example, scientists are researching the use of spider venom in medicine and as non-polluting pesticides.
Spider silk is more light, strong and flexible thansynthetic materials, and spider silk genes have been inserted into mammals and plants to see if these can be used as silk factories.
Thailand and spiders
As The Bangkok Post reported in 2012, over 230 species of spiders have been identified in the Kingdom so far. Among outstanding Thai researchers on spiders are Dr. Patchanee Vichibandha of the Faculty of Biology, Kasetsart University, and Dr. Prasit Wongprom, of the Faculty of Forestry, Kasetsart University. Since they are experts in arachnids, they are known as arachnologists.
As TU students know, the word ending ologist is added to the end of nouns in order to form other nouns that refer to people who are concerned with a particular science or subject. Here are some familiar English words ending with the letters ologist:
- anesthesiologist
- anthologist
- anthropologist
- archaeologist
- astrobiologist
- audiologist
- bacteriologist
- cardiologist
- climatologist
- cosmetologist
- cosmologist
- criminologist
- cryptologist
- cryptozoologist
- demonologist
- dermatologist
- ecologist
- embryologist
- endocrinologist
- entomologist
- epidemiologist
- epistemologist
- escapologist
- ethnologist
- ethnomusicologist
- etymologist
- futurologist
- gastroenterologist
- geologist
- gerontologist
- glaciologist
- graphologist
- gynaecologist
- haematologist
- herpetologist
- hydrobiologist
- ichthyologist
- immunologist
- immunopathologist
- kremlinologist
- lepidopterologist
- lexicologist
- limnologist
- martyrologist
- meteorologist
- microbiologist
- mixologist
- musicologist
- mythologist
- neurobiologist
- neuropharmacologist
- neurophysiologist
- numerologist
- oceanologist
- oncologist
- ophthalmologist
- ornithologist
- otorhinolaryngologist
- paleoanthropologist
- paleobiologist
- paleoclimatologist
- palaeontologist
- papyrologist
- parapsychologist
- parasitologist
- pathologist
- pharmacologist
- phenomenologist
- physiologist
- psychologist
- radiologist
- topologist
- toxicologist
- urbanologist
- virologist
- volcanologist
- zoologist
Dr. Patchanee has co-authored research articles on A field experiment on the effectiveness of spiders and carabid beetles as biocontrol agents in soybean and Spiders in decomposition: food webs of Agroecosystems theory and evidence.
Dr. Prasit has co-authored articles such as First data on spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) from dry dipterocarp forests of Thailand and One new species of the genus Savarna Huber, 2005 (Araneae, Pholcidae) from southern Thailand, as well as several studies identifying previously unknown species.
Thoughts on spiders
Here are some observations about spiders by authors, many of whom are represented in the TU Library collection:
Spiders were around long before humans, and it is likely they will be around in some number far into the future, even if humans are not. When most land and sea animals died out during the Permian mass extinction, spiders survived. Spiders thrived when oxygen levels were both lower and higher than today, when the sunlight hitting the ground was both stronger and weaker, and when plant and animal populations were both greater and smaller. Silk and the evolvable nature of the genes that dictate it have enabled spiders to stake a claim on the land for hundreds of millions of years and they are likely to do so for hundreds of millions of years to come.
- Leslie Brunetta & Catherine L. Craig, Spider Silk (2010)
Spider silk is often touted as some of the strongest material on Earth: According to some calculations, it can be up to five times stronger than steel cable of similar weight—though that comparison is not perfect. If humans could manufacture spider silk on an industrial scale, which they’ve been trying to do for decades, it could lead to an era of lightweight bulletproof vests, helmets, superstrong threads and patches that could be used during surgery and even lightweight airplane fuselages.
In their latest study in the journal ACS Macro Letters, the team found that instead of being one long strand of protein, the ribbon of silk is composed entirely of 1 micron-long nanostrands stuck together in parallel. Typically, about 2,500 of these mini-strands clung together to form one strand of silk.
“We were expecting to find that the fiber was a single mass,” co-author Hannes Schniepp of William & Mary says in a statement. “But what we found was that the silk was actually a kind of tiny cable.”
This isn’t the team’s first silken discovery either. In a 2017 study, they looked closely at how the little arachnids spin their silk, finding that they create tiny loops which add toughess to the fibers. Each strand has up to 500 loops per inch. Miceli reports that previous studies had proposed that nanostrands were involved in the makeup of the silk, but no one had considered that the entire strand would be composed of them. Armed with the new research and information about the loops, the researchers have now created a new model for the spider silk’s structure. The nanotendrils aren’t braided together like in a rope cable, but are instead stuck together with relativley weak bonds. When they act as a whole, however, the strands give the silk its incredible strength.
- Jason Daley, “Brown Recluse Silk Is Stronger Than Steel Because It’s Constructed Like a Cable”, Smithsonian.com, (November 21, 2018).
The spider’s touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line.
- Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34)
A spider lowered itself, fathom by fathom, on a perilous length of thread and was suddenly transfixed in the path of a sunbeam and, for an instant, was a thing of radiant gold.
- Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast (1950)
“Will you walk into my parlour?”
Said a spider to a fly;
“‘Tis the prettiest little parlour
That ever you did spy.”
- Mary Howitt, The Spider and the Fly.
(all images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)