Title
Physical characterization of the liquid adhesive from orb-weaving spiders
Date Issued
01 January 2014
Access level
metadata only access
Resource Type
journal article
Abstract
Orb-weaving spiders produce bioadhesives that are used to capture their prey. In this paper, the physical properties of these adhesives are characterised. The liquid adhesive from Argiope argentata spiders has been studied and the morphological properties of the droplets, including size, shape and volume were determined. An estimation of viscosity and Young's modulus using atomic force microscopy has also been carried out. Morphological characterization confirmed that the liquid adhesive displayed a typical beads-on-a-string (BOAS) morphology on the silk fibres. The experimental data confirmed that the elastic modulus of the liquid adhesive from A. argentata was in the range 20-100 kPa which is in agreement with the Dahlquist criterion for adhesives. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.
Start page
341
End page
344
Volume
34
Issue
1
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Zoología, Ornitología, Entomología, ciencias biológicas del comportamiento
Ingeniería de materiales
Subjects
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-84889091258
PubMed ID
Source
Materials Science and Engineering C
ISSN of the container
09284931
Sponsor(s)
The authors would like to thank the Vice-Rectorate for Research of the Catholic University of Peru (VRI-PUCP) for their financial support.
Sources of information:
Directorio de Producción Científica
Scopus