(CNN) — It’s an arachnophobe’s worst nightmare: towns draped in spider webs. Residents of the Australian region of Gippsland in the state of Victoria were greeted with layers of gossamer cobwebs after ...

A spider rappelling down from a tree branch spins the hardy gossamer thread it hangs from as it descends. The proteins that make up the fiber, called spidroins, exist as a liquid in the spider’s silk ...