W&M researchers progress in unraveling mysteries of invisible spider web ‘super fibers’

Researchers at William & Mary have measured the strength and stretchability of minuscule nanofibrils present in the silk spun by the southern house spider. The core of a spider silk strand is composed of two distinct warps that form helical loops around a central foundation fiber. The tiniest fibers, nanofibrils, are spun into a mesh that surrounds those supporting structures. The researchers found that the nanofibrils in the southern house spider’s silk could stretch 11 times their original length, more than twice the amount of any spider silk previously tested. "As amazing as spider silk as a whole is, looking at these tiny fibrils, they are even stretchier,” said Hannes Schniepp, one of the scientists involved in this study.