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Why in News?
- Recent scientific studies in early 2026 have successfully identified the specific proteins (MaSp4 and MaSp5) that give Darwin’s bark spider silk its record-breaking toughness, opening new doors for manufacturing bulletproof biomaterials.
Darwin’s Bark Spider
- Scientific Name: Caerostris darwini.
- Geographic Distribution: Endemic to the island of Madagascar. It primarily inhabits riverine forests and wetlands.
- Physical Characteristics: It is an orb-weaving spider with a mottled, bark-like appearance that provides excellent camouflage against tree trunks.
- Sexual Dimorphism: Females are significantly larger than males, with females measuring up to 2.5 cm while males are about one-third that size.
- World Record Web:
- It builds the largest orb webs known to science, sometimes covering an area of up to 2.8 square meters.
- Its “bridge lines” (the main anchor threads) can span across rivers and lakes, reaching lengths of up to 25 meters.
- Extraordinary Silk Properties:
- Toughness: Its dragline silk is the toughest biological material ever studied, about ten times tougher than Kevlar and twice as tough as any other known spider silk.
- Strength vs. Elasticity: The silk is not just strong (tensile strength) but exceptionally elastic, allowing it to absorb massive amounts of kinetic energy from flying prey without snapping.
