Spiders In Space

The orb weaver species were selected based on the symmetrical webs they weave on earth.
Spiders in space. As a result these two arachnids dubbed gladys and esmeralda by astronaut cady coleman are reaching celebrity status. This allowed researchers to study the spiders web spinning practices to see if that behavior or the characteristics of the web they produced would change over time. Nasa astronaut cady coleman shows the spider habitat. Within a few days of being in space however they adapted to their weightlessness and made their webs with some normalcy.
The nephila clavipes themselves seemed to have their own little science experiment. Their first webs were chaotic and three dimensional as the spiders were not used to the lack of gravity. Drawing on inspiring stories of individuals organizations and businesses spiders in space presents a menu of adaptive traits that can help us not only survive but thrive when unwanted change comes our way. Csi 03 launched to the iss on the space shuttle endeavour on november 14 2008.
The habitat included two orb weaver spiders larinioides patagiatus or genus metepeira which students could view from earth to compare the feeding and web building of the spiders in space against those housed in classrooms.