Creepy Crawly Friends Weave Wondrous Textile

I've blogged before about Claire's love of many-legged critters and how we've observed them (to her grandparents horror) in our glass cake stand for a few days. When I came across this article in Wired Magazine on a spider silk textile project,  I immediately read it with Claire.

Of course I nearly snorted my coffee when I read the line, "Unlike silk worms, which are easy to raise in captivity, spiders have a habit of chomping off each other’s heads when housed together."

Oh. Dear.

What an interesting read about how the industrious folks in Madagascar collected wild golden orb spiders who were "milked" of silk and then released, unharmed, to resume their bug control duty back in the wild.


Of course Claire now wants a million (or twenty-teen) spiders of her own to weave a blanket for huggy bear. If my sister is reading this, I'm sure she's having flashbacks of the time Mom bought me an ant farm and the sleepy, half frozen ants woke up with a vengeance and swarmed the kitchen. Poor Laurie. I do believe she is scarred for life.

Nature is truly wondrous and I'm hoping to make the trip to NYC to check out this amazing textile, I just wish we could touch it!

I love the idea of sharing age-appropriate current events with young children and would love to hear how you incorporate recent news and science developments in your classroom or home!

Check out the article here:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/spider-silk/
Photos above from Wired