Spider silk sound system

Researchers have investigated how spiders listen to their environments through webs and found that the webs match the acoustic particle velocity for a wide range of sound frequencies. Playing sound ranging from 1 Hz to 50 kHz for the spiders and measuring the spider silk motion with a laser vibrometer, they found the sound-induced velocity of the silk was the same as the particles in the air surrounding it. This confirmed the mechanism that these spiders use to detect their prey.