Cloak made from Spider silk - how does this make you react?

[Armpit]

I have found several articles and none can decided on how long it took to make this cloak, but the one thing that stood out in mind is that they "harness" the golden orb weavers in by their heads, and then basically pull webbing out of them. then they are released "unharmed."

somehow this infuriates me? i dont understand how they can say "unharmed." if i were plucked from my home, strapped to a harness, and had my poop harvested i dont think i'd be thrilled and/or unharmed.

though one could argue its the same with cows, and milking machines.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/25/world/europe/spider-silk-cape-on-display/index.html

i'm curious what your input is on this.

 

[spiderfield]

I think its pretty cool.

 

[Hipster OBT]

Waste of time...

 

[grayzone]

can they make a BATH ROBE for a 6foot6 guy?:biggrin: Id rock it

 

[Armpit]

ahhaa i guess what i mean is ... am i the only one who finds this terribly inhumane??

Grayzone, ill make you a robe with my butt fibers. Give me a few years.

 

[FoxtheLviola]

I think it is pointless that they gathered enough spider silk to make a cloak. But scientists use this method all the time to collect spider silk so they can study it's properties. It does leave the spider completely unharmed, and I don't think it is any worse than how they milk spider for venom.

 

[MarkmD]

I watched a program about the orbwevars spinning Webb's upside down a couple of weeks ago, and Richard Hammonds program a fue day's ago, both had the same idea, that the silk is so strong it could become valuable in the future for building new things, sounds cool to me.

 

[The Snark]

ahhaa i guess what i mean is ... am i the only one who finds this terribly inhumane??

Grayzone, ill make you a robe with my butt fibers. Give me a few years.

Consistency among humans can be as rare as the silk. If the Nephila were cute kittens or puppies you could expect appropriate umbrage.

 

[grayzone]

Grayzone, ill make you a robe with my butt fibers. Give me a few years.

Ill hold you to that:biggrin:

 

[Solucki]

RAPE!!!!!!!
But seriously. I guess it would be like giving blood or milking a cow. I hope they give them a meal at least to replenish webjuice.
And yes. That would be a sweet rainjacket. Waterproof and durable.

Consistency among humans can be as rare as the silk. If the Nephila were cute kittens or puppies you could expect appropriate umbrage.

Yes. PETA would be all over them. Is there PETArachnids

 

[MB623]

You can do this with your t's, and you don't even have to harness them. Touch one of your fingers to your t's spinnerettes and you can pull a continuous strands of web from their "butt." You could even go as far as spooling it up if someone desired, although it seems pointless. It seems not to bother the t as they go about their business. Could you imagine the tiny harness you would need to fit a Nephila sp.?:laugh:

 

[Ciphor]

Milking silk drastically shortens a spiders lifespan. It's very rich in protein and takes a lot of energy to produce. That's about it though. It's not a painful situation, and depending on the spider it is usually not a stressful situation once you have milked it a few times. Nephila spp. for example are pretty docile, another reason why they are so easy to harvest silk from.

 

[spiderengineer]

what you need to understand is that if its done is a lab then they have regulation and guideline that must following when dealing with any animal or insect. I remember a buddy of mine who is in the medical field. was talking to me once about how much paper work you have to fill out and submit, just to get approval to do test on animal subject. so I imagine that when they say they were unharmed they mean they were unharmed. I mean you have to realize also that there is only a few ways to get silk from spiders and its just unfortunate how they have to do it. in the end though once they figure out the chemical compound they can figure out how to reproduce it artificially or get another animal to reproduce it in larger quantity (they do this with goats) then they won't need spiders anymore.

 

[grayzone]

Milking silk drastically shortens a spiders lifespan. It's very rich in protein and takes a lot of energy to produce. That's about it though. It's not a painful situation, and depending on the spider it is usually not a stressful situation once you have milked it a few times. Nephila spp. for example are pretty docile, another reason why they are so easy to harvest silk from.

Never even though of it like that... thanks a lot Ciphor. good to know.

So, as a side question, could that be one of the reasons why heavily webbing ts dont live as long as non webbing ones? Or is the shortened lifespan not THAT drastic?
hope that makes sense

 

[nepenthes]

what you need to understand is that if its done is a lab then they have regulation and guideline that must following when dealing with any animal or insect. I remember a buddy of mine who is in the medical field. was talking to me once about how much paper work you have to fill out and submit, just to get approval to do test on animal subject. so I imagine that when they say they were unharmed they mean they were unharmed. I mean you have to realize also that there is only a few ways to get silk from spiders and its just unfortunate how they have to do it. in the end though once they figure out the chemical compound they can figure out how to reproduce it artificially or get another animal to reproduce it in larger quantity (they do this with goats) then they won't need spiders anymore.

"Instead, they simply wanted to prove that it could be done, and to create two items which could help revive traditional Malagasy weaving techniques and embroidery skills, and to showcase the talents of people working on the island."

I don't think that the island they were on has the same strict regulations the US has. Just a thought.

 

[Armpit]

this is a great conversation! i like seeing all the different perspectives.

 

[spiderengineer]

"Instead, they simply wanted to prove that it could be done, and to create two items which could help revive traditional Malagasy weaving techniques and embroidery skills, and to showcase the talents of people working on the island."

I don't think that the island they were on has the same strict regulations the US has. Just a thought.

good point they never really said where they did it at but, they said in the article the release them back into the wild. shorten lifespan angle while may be true, but orb weaver don't have long life anyways and not to mention they break down webs and make knew ones constantly so it can't be that detrimental to them.

 

[Ciphor]

Never even though of it like that... thanks a lot Ciphor. good to know.

So, as a side question, could that be one of the reasons why heavily webbing ts dont live as long as non webbing ones? Or is the shortened lifespan not THAT drastic?
hope that makes sense

I cannot confirm or deny the differences in lifespans between a T that webs a lot and a T that does not. Heavy webbers in nature do not have to web as often as you think, because they build their home and stay there. In captivity the same spider may have to web 10-20x as often because of cleaning and other human involvement.

Tegenaria gigantea for example is a heavy webbing true spider, however it outlives prowlers, jumpers & other similar spiders. In my observations with this species juvenile giant house spiders that had to build their own web did not have a shorter lifespan then juveniles I housed in an existing web.

---------- Post added 11-24-2012 at 09:43 PM ----------

good point they never really said where they did it at but, they said in the article the release them back into the wild. shorten lifespan angle while may be true, but orb weaver don't have long life anyways and not to mention they break down webs and make knew ones constantly so it can't be that detrimental to them.

Orb weavers are seasonal yes, however they evolved this way by design, and are a more successful species because of it in most peoples opinion. You're not seeing all the factors here. The spider being seasonal actually makes its selection much more impactful then a 2 or 3 year spider. The timing at which they removed the spiders could have a impact if say for instance it was during mating season. I could list a lot of reasons why releasing the spiders back into the wild is fruitless after you have captured them and drained of their energy. I could also list a lot of reasons why this type of harvesting is not as impactful as the math would say.

Also while orb weavers do remake their web almost every night, they also consume the silk as they take it down. This fact actually makes it a huge detriment to the spider. Completely depleted of their silk and protein could be their death sentence. They might not be able to rebuild a web to eat with or shelter in.

Who knows though. If I was them I would have gathered data. Really without any data on the population pre & post collecting, without observing the spiders you released back into the wild and tracking their survival, all you can do is speculate.

 

[The Snark]

I read about this in the distant past and if anyone can point me to it or a similar article I'd very much appreciate it.
The article went into great detail about the food consumption of the spider, the protein reserves it has, and it's ability to assume a state of torpor. The three are intrinsically connected and determine the longevity of the spider, it's ability to reproduce, and the viability of the offspring. The article extended this by a number of theories that the spiders viability in various locations are relative to these three factors and the viability will fluctuate depending on the spider being deprived of any one of the factors. IE, shorter torpor periods (wintering), lack of abundant food and destruction of the web causing a loss of reserve proteins.

 

[Tarac]

what you need to understand is that if its done is a lab then they have regulation and guideline that must following when dealing with any animal or insect. I remember a buddy of mine who is in the medical field. was talking to me once about how much paper work you have to fill out and submit, just to get approval to do test on animal subject. so I imagine that when they say they were unharmed they mean they were unharmed. I mean you have to realize also that there is only a few ways to get silk from spiders and its just unfortunate how they have to do it. in the end though once they figure out the chemical compound they can figure out how to reproduce it artificially or get another animal to reproduce it in larger quantity (they do this with goats) then they won't need spiders anymore.

You have to qualify that though- when you have medical animals, they do have regulated lifestyles that amount to good, clean, healthy environments. But you may have engineered them to have crippling arthritis or some terrible tumor or you may have to remove paws or ears or tails. Most have to be "sacrificed" (we don't call it euthanasia in medicine, it's a no-no) regardless of their health. Moreover you are talking about vertebrates. Inverts require virtually no paperwork at all regarding their humane treatment. Instead, the paperwork deals with how you will contain and destroy and sterilize every last one and every last thing that they touch so as to prevent release or contamination of the local ecology, etc. Kind of comparing apples to oranges.

BUT... these are just golden orb weavers (which I am assuming is Nephila from the US, right? maybe that's too much to assume), not some rare or difficult to repopulate spider and they aren't plucking the legs off or giving it tumors or any of the other relatively ghoulish things we do to other animals. It's excessive for a cloak, but there are lots of excessive things we do in our life that ultimately cost many animals lives and we often don't even see the direct link despite it's existence. I don't really see the issue with harvesting silk in this small scale and given the cost it will never become large scale until we perfect laboratory silk (which we almost have save the little rods in the protein structure) anyway. I don't really see what the fuss is about other than a lot of anthropomorphizing going on here. And it's not the first cloth of it's kind, BTW. The first one I believe is housed in the Natural History Museum (NYC), made by some fancy well known designer who I can't recall right now- Gucci level type of designer though, I recognized the name as being uber expensive at the time I read that article. It was inspired by an earlier effort of Father Comboue who had actually made a machine to do the very same harvesting described in the late 1800's.