ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Web Structure and Silk Spinning Apparatus
Morphology of Uloborus walckenaerius Latreille
1806 (Araneae, Uloboridae) Spider
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1
Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Çankırı Karatekin University, Çankırı, Türkiye
2
Department of Biology, Faculty of Science and Arts, Kırıkkale University, 71450 Kırıkkale, Türkiye
3
Department of Biology, Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, 71450 Kırıkkale, Türkiye
Submission date: 2023-06-13
Final revision date: 2023-09-06
Acceptance date: 2023-11-03
Online publication date: 2024-01-24
Publication date: 2024-02-28
Corresponding author
İlkay Çorak Öcal
Department of Biology, Faculty of Science,, Çankırı Karatekin University, Çankırı, Turkey, Çankırı,, Turkey
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2024;33(3):2233-2239
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ABSTRACT
The web- building skills of spiders made them strong from the evolutionary aspect. Spider webs are
used in hunting, building nests, setting traps, and movement. The structure of web architecture, that of
adhesive materials being produced, and that of cribellate offer important clues in order to understand
their hunting behaviors. Spiders have different silk-spinning apparatuses, allowing them to produce
different types of silk fibrils. While some spider species rely on webs for survival in nature, others
can survive without them. Even though basic taxonomic features remain constant, the silk-spinning
apparatuses of spiders might be subjected to adaptive variations. In the present study, the structural
organization of the silk-spinning apparatus and the web architecture of the web-maker spider Uloborus
walckenaerius Latreille, 1806 were observed by making use of scanning electron microscopy (SEM).
The web structure of U. walckenaerius, the characteristics of the spinnerets, especially the posterior
spinneret, and the arrangement of the spigots are reported in this study. Adaptations of the silk-spinning
apparatus, which has provided an evolutionary success to U. walckenaerius, were also analyzed. It was
determined that the web structure consisted of very fine nanofibers and, differing from other groups,
there also were crimped silk fibrils.