Golden Orb Spiders Help Produce a Work of Art

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Golden Orb Spiders Help Produce a Work of Art

Silk is a smooth, shiny and costly natural material. People usually get their silk supply from worms. But spiders make silk, too. In fact, their silk is even lighter and softer than silk from silkworms. But getting silk from a spider might seem more difficult. Especially from a big spider that can bite. Recently, two men in Madagascar proved it can be done with extraordinary results. Mario Ritter has more.

The American Museum of Natural History in New York City has a most unusual object on exhibit. It is a beautiful wall covering made of shiny, bright golden silk. The tapestry is about three meters long and one meter wide. It is light as a feather but strong as steel. The tapestry was woven with silk provided by the golden orb spider.

It took more than a million of them to produce that much silk. Simon Peers is a British art historian and expert in woven materials. He moved to Madagascar about twenty years ago. He started a textile business in that island nation in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa. Nicholas Godley is an American clothing designer. He also had a business in Madagascar making purses.

Both were interested in the idea of making a textile piece from silk of the golden orb spider. These spiders are native to Madagascar as well as many other places. The females make huge webs, sometimes large enough to hang between trees on either side of a rural road.

The webs have an intense golden color. The female spiders have a bright yellow splash of color on their bodies and can grow as large as a human hand.

Mister Peers had researched stories of spider silk being used by human weavers. Together he and Mister Godley paid local people to gather about three thousand female spiders daily.

They placed twenty-four spiders at a time in a holding device. Each spider produced a line of silk about three hundred fifty meters long. Then, the creatures were released back into the wild.

The tapestry was finished after about four years of gathering the silk and weaving it together. The piece has a traditional Malagasy design woven into it.

Mister Godley and Mister Peers hope the tapestry will help protect the golden orb spider and bring attention to the needy country of Madagascar.

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