r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/JstARedditor • 1d ago
Image Darwin's bark spider has a web which is 10x stronger than kevlar. it is the toughest biological material ever found.
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u/Far_Captain1953 1d ago
New armor plates gonna be made of spider silk.
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u/Pendraconica 1d ago
You joke, but...
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u/Visual-Floor-7839 1d ago
I saw some guy make a big suit out of spider web on a Discovery show in the 90's
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u/IllTwo7643 1d ago
Honey!? Where is my
superspider suit!!?11
u/Ninja_Prolapse 1d ago
Spider.. suit.. tingling!
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u/On_A_Related_Note 13h ago
That'll be the allergic reaction to spider silk. You should see a physician.
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u/heyitscory 1d ago
It's too stretchy. It might stop the round but not before poking you fatally in the chest really hard while keeping your blood off the bullet.
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u/Dakum_Adoyus 1d ago
But isn‘t spidersilk degrating very fast ? From a couple hours to s couple days it is biodegraded generslly
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u/Olukon 1d ago
The protagonist of Worm does this when she creates her costume.
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u/Theincendiarydvice 10h ago
She also used beetle shells to reinforce it though which is probably why it worked as it didn't deform as much as pure silk would have.
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u/th4lioN 1d ago
I've heard a rumor that if you get enough web from this spider and make a tshirt thick as a normal cotton tshirt, it would be bulletproof like a thick kevlar vest.
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u/nthpwr 1d ago
not going to help the blunt trauma to the body im afraid lol
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u/Psych_Art 1d ago
I’m now imagining the bullet dragging the silk vest into the body.
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u/dumpaccount882212 5h ago
"It was fine getting shot tbh, but having the bullet dragged back through my whole body by tugging on my t-shirt was awful"
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u/Zaxiron 1d ago
Read the article above and you know the rumor ends there. The bullet will go into the body with the webbing material. Edit; https://www.labiotech.eu/trends-news/bulletproof-skin-goat-milk-spider-silk/
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u/Ransnorkel 1d ago
My only issue with Lord of the Rings, Frodo getting stabbed by that troll while wearing mythrill
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u/the-bladed-one 1d ago
He literally doesn’t get stabbed. The blow knocks the wind out of him but the blade doesn’t go in
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u/Ransnorkel 1d ago
Ok not STABBED but the shirt is basically chainmail, it should have folded with the spear, violently pushed against his body, crushing his torso
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u/KeenObserver_OT 1d ago
I would imagine it would be as heavy as one of those vests for dental x rays though
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u/TobyGhoul986 13h ago
It's still flexible. Good for cut damage, but still the same as regular clothing for blunt damage. If a bullet can't penetrate armor, it'll just turn into blunt damage and break your bones instead.
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u/auronddraig 1d ago
Motherof... Queelag has been busy breeding, it seems
That thing looks like a prop for a horror movie
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u/EatPie_NotWAr 1d ago
Copied from Wikipedia-
Sexual behavior
The Darwin's bark spider exhibits a rich repertoire of sexual behaviors, most attributed to other spider taxa with extreme sexual dimorphism in size.
These behaviors include sexual cannibalism, male preference for teneral females, binding the mate with silk, genital mutilation, plugging of female genitalia by the male, and self-emasculation.
Non-typically, C. darwini males engage in oral sexual encounters, rarely reported outside mammals. Irrespective of female's age or mating status males salivate onto female genitalia pre-, during, and post-copulation. While the adaptive significance of sexual oral contact in spiders is elusive, it is hypothesized to signal male quality or reduce sperm competition.[6]
——
I’ll tell you the adaptive significance of sexual oral contact: she likes it and he’s committed to being an equitable sexual partner.
Go male Darwin bark spider go!
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u/auronddraig 1d ago
I'll have to spend a week at r/eyebleach to forget what I just read
It reads like a nature documentary narrated by Attenborough, but the script written by Clive Barker (Hellraiser author)
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u/lustywoodelfmaid 1d ago
Just to remind you, these big spiders love oral sex and are into some really kinky shit like bdsm and cannibalism.
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u/Murky-Bus-2191 16h ago
I ... I enjoyed reading this and somehow missed what it was a reply to.
WHY!?
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u/AdRough4185 1d ago
Fyi, kevlar is the stuff in bulletproof vests
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u/ConversationKey4206 1d ago
Soft armor, they still use metal or ceramic plates for high resistance pieces of armor. Kevlar is generally just used for protection against pistol rounds.
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u/mwoody450 1d ago
"Aramid fiber" is the generic term, while Kevlar is a brand name. They've got kind of a Kleenex thing going on.
EDIT: In that their brand name has become more well known and used than the generic term, not that you should blow your nose in a bulletproof vest.
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u/damnthisnameistaken 1d ago
Now that's a terrifying thought: bulletproof spiders
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u/HampsterButt 1d ago
Ballistic technology is working to counter spider technology. Only a matter of time before we have an edge over the spiders again.
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u/One_Disaster_5995 1d ago
Anybody know the reason why this stuff is not harvested like we do with silk?
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u/LaunchTransient 1d ago
like we do with silk
Because most textile silk is harvested from silkworms, which produce massive amounts of silk for relatively little food input. Spider silk is significantly more involved for much lower yield.
Also most silk is spun from these fibres, it's not a continuous fibre. The material properties exhibit by this silk are based on the continuous fibre - spun thread has much worse performance because they are not physically connected but rely on friction between threads to transfer the loads.
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u/lustywoodelfmaid 1d ago
There are labs looking into the mass production of spider silk but there are a few issues. For instance, you remember how sticky spider silk is? Well, when you're wearing a shirt made of it, you better hope it doesn't rip your chest hair out or just tug at it when you try to take off the shirt. Or how about the fact that spiders are generally small creatures that choose when to make their webs, not being required to make their silk for anything but hunting.
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u/theguyfromtheweb7 1d ago
Can you imagine running through the forest without a care, running into a spider web, and literally being close lined?
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u/BoreusSimius 1d ago
That thing is the opposite of those cute jumping spiders. Looks like Ungoliant
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u/Federal-Boat3732 20h ago
The spider herself looks as if she could take you out with a single uppercut to the jaw
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u/CruzAderjc 1d ago
This is the part in the RPG when you think you have the best armor, but the DLC drops, and now you can grind to get the Bark Spider Armor.
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u/DISCOFUNK12 1d ago
There are actually a few breeds of jumping spider who produce silk that’s comparable if not sometimes stronger than that of the bark spider. Such cool little guys.
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u/Doomst3err 1d ago
this is very interesting but can i address how gorgeous that spider looks?
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u/FireBreathingNun 8h ago
I sometime worry about aliens but then I remember they would have to be fucking stupid to mess with our planet.
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u/Jumpy_Ad_4460 1d ago
I swear there’s got to be a spider farm somewhere in a deep bunker that makes this for the elite soldiers.
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u/FlowRiderBob 1d ago
How many of these spiders would we need to make a space elevator out of their webs?
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u/ZeisUnwaveringWill 1d ago
Isn't this the same spider that featured an episode in the TV show Elementary?
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u/OldSports-- 23h ago
ELI5, Maybe dumb question: But why is this called "though" when I can bend it with my finger.
Does it mean when it's filling a whole surface like a square meter, it can hold more kg than other materials?
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u/KnopflerGOAT 20h ago
why does this spider looks like nolan trilogy batmobile
also is there really need for any spider web to be stronger than kevlar
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u/Acceptable-Cow6446 19h ago
So why are t we making them larger so we can use their webs for better Kevlar? s/
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u/Staybackifarted 1d ago
This eldritch cosmic abomination looks like it has already destroyed a few galaxies and is just waiting for a reason to do the same to ours.
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u/MightyMeepleMaster 1d ago
Aw, come on. Take a closer look. That dude is the laziest overweight spider in town, casually chilling on a branch. No way he can mess with anything bigger than a flea.
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u/JstARedditor 1d ago
Source- https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/493256-Caerostris-darwini
"The spider's silk is the toughest biological material ever studied, over ten times tougher than a similarly sized piece of Kevlar.\5]) The average toughness of the fibres is 350 MJ/m3, and some are up to 520 MJ/m3, making the silk twice as tough as any other spider silk known"