Dr. Jonas Wolff

The colonial spider web in Sulfur Cave, is home to a mixed colony of Tegenaria domestica and Prinerigone vagans. A. Side view; B. frontal view. The swarm of adult chironomids is visible near the cave stream. Photo A: Marek Audy.

Biggest spider web in the world: the area of a flat.

Found in a sulphur-smelling cave in the Balkans, this ~100m² spongy web is maintained by two species of solitary 🕷️. The 110K inhabitants feed on midges, probably because they can't see the other spiders.

🧪
subtbiol.pensoft.net/article/1623...

Spiders possess multiple types of silk glands, which produce silk materials with contrasting properties.
What happens if they combine different silks into a single line - Does this reinforce, even toughen, the silk thread?

We got some answers from cellar and cave spiders:
doi.org/10.1039/D5SM... 🔓

Figure showing a video still from a high speed video of a netcasting spider capturing a cricket with its elastic web held in the front legs. Left to the video still there are load-strain diagrams of different lines in the web showing that the upper lines are stiff and strong and the lower lines are highly extensible. Left to the diagrams there are scanning elactron microcopy images of the dfifferent lines, showing that the upper, stiffer lines are cables made of many parallal fibres, whereas the lower lines have a soft central core with adjoined looped fibres. The degree of looping correlates with how much the spiders post-process the silk after spinning. This way they can tailor the stiffness of each line in the web separately and create a vertical stiffness gradient throughout the whole web architecture from stiff and strong in the upper load bearing frame to soft and hyper-elastic in the lower part that is rapidly extended and thrown against the prey at high speed during the predatory strike.

Netcasting spiders modulate silk thread stiffness via a tailorable multi-fibre meta-structure to construct a web that is hyperelastic and high load-bearing at the same time.
Read about our discovery in PNAS: doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
🔓 & with video content!

Just back from a productive writing retreat of @evoimec.bsky.social and @multipleye-lab.bsky.social on the remote island of Hiddensee.
Look out for new papers coming up from our labs!

Royal Society Publishing Photography Competition | Royal Society Celebrating the power of photography to communicate science.

Wow! Our long-term collaborator and friend Martín Ramírez is the winner of the @royalsocietypublishing.org photo competition, with a SEM image from our joint research on spider silk!!
royalsociety.org/journals/pub...

Thanks for joining. These were fruitful 3 days.
Plus I have eaten so well and laughed so much as not in a long time.

This is the Sunburst Candy Spider from Thailand. Not AI (sucks to have to declare this). Very real and had been on my wish list for a long time.

The taxonomic placement is unclear, so we are leaving it at Cyrtarachninae.

This is a "reindeer cyclone", a defensive behavior that has been observed in herds of reindeer, even in captivity.

The fawns and older animals are at the center, the strongest animal in the outer lanes.

The point is to confuse the brains of predators accustomed to stalking a single outlier.

Looks like a juvenile huntsman(?) Amazing catch for a Salticid.

How cool is that? Is that a tree house?

Photo of Maitry Jani in the lab, smiling, showing a large live spider sitting on her hand.

@maitryjani.bsky.social from my lab @evoimec.bsky.social talks about her scientific journey and newest paper in @jexpbiol.bsky.social ERC Spotlight:
journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

Toward a global repository of insect traits (GRIT) Biodiversity loss is accelerating, yet insect conservation is hindered by the absence of a centralised, comprehensive trait database. We propose the GRIT, a FAIR, open-access platform uniting datase...

#LIBresearch: A new study introduces the Global Repository of Insect Traits (GRIT) — a worldwide initiative integrating insect trait data to make insects more understandable and comparable across ecosystems. → doi.org/10.1111/icad.70035

@cscherber.bsky.social

Cool. Congrats!
I only found one in 3.5 yrs of fieldwork in Australia.
Try to feed it a spider.

I love these critters!
Thanks for your great contributions to the taxonomy of whip-spiders!

Reposting for the Monday morning scrollers! Funded PhD opportunity with me @multipleye-lab.bsky.social @bristolbiosci.bsky.social - spiders, their eyes, and their babies under long- and short-term light pollution!

AI Abuse to Skirt Copyright Law - Macro Photography by Nicky Bay In the past week, a number of prominent nature photographers showed how their photographs were being stolen and mangled into "AI-nonsense", deceiving countless others into believing the made-up storie...

www.nickybay.com/ai-abuse-to-...
AI abuse on macrophotography and AI generation of incorrect captions. Here are examples compiled by wildlife photographer Nicky Bay.

Our second invited #morphology speaker @wolffspider.bsky.social from @unigreifswald.bsky.social presented on the amazing biomechanics of #spider extended phenotypes and their ecolution

It was an absolute joy sharing this amazing web of brilliant people here in Zadar. Thank you all for coming and making it so special! 🕷️❤️

I guess it would have been cooperative if I had captured it :-D

Thank you @mpavlek.bsky.social et al. for organising this wonderful @35theca2025.bsky.social conference! This will remain a memorable event.

Happy to say the 35th ECA in Zadar has officially started!

Dear all, the registration and abstract submission deadline is approaching in a few days! Friday June 20th at midnight!!! 🚨 Don't miss the chance to join us in a beautiful Zadar! 🌞https://event.fourwaves.com/eca2025/pages

🕷️🌍🕸️ Spiders aren't creepy crawlies—they're ecosystem heroes! From pest control to biotech inspiration to key figures in our collective culture, a new review reveals the many services spiders provide:

🔗 doi.org/10.1111/brv....

(drawing by @jmalumbresolarte.bsky.social)

Shame the males do not use their abdominal flaps for gliding 😆
Wonder how long evolution would take to "figure this out".

Our latest paper on the jump kinematics and choreography in the Oz Splendid Peacock spider. We filmed & analysed locomotory jumps in male & female spiders. The males are incredibly light - measuring just 2mg - and oh they can jump! Videos in the thread. Open Access - read here: tinyurl.com/4bnpz9tz

Cyphonia clavata, a treehopper with a helmet that looks like an ant - this is a brown insect, head towards us, with green eye transparent wings, and a weird ass growth out of its head. It is absolutely crazy. Cyphonia clavata, a treehopper with a helmet that looks like an ant - this is a brown insect, head towards us, with green eye transparent wings, and a weird ass growth out of its head. It is absolutely crazy.

Go home everyone, there is absolutely nothing happening here.

....

😍

⚒️🧪🦀🦑

(Photo by Andreas Kay)

Thanks!

35th European Congress of Arachnology Fourwaves - 35th European Congress of Arachnology

For all arachnolovers🕷️🦂🕸️: follow the updates on the next European meeting to be held next September in beautiful Zadar 🌅in Croatia at @35theca2025.bsky.social . Also on webpage: event.fourwaves.com/eca2025/pages

Unbelievable what people come up with (and seemingly get through with as it seems to be only the tip of the ice berg).

Beautiful light art at the Shining Lights festival in #Greifswald - with several biological motifs 🤩 Very nice idea to make the cold and dark season a little brighter - should become a regular event!
One installation features the #kinematics of #birdflight and it's interactive 🤯😊