Chapter 5 Importance of Unique Silk Proteins to the Ecological and Evolutionary Diversity of Araneid Spiders
Downloaded by UNIV OF GUELPH LIBRARY on October 29, 2012 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date: December 3, 1993 | doi: 10.1021/bk-1994-0544.ch005
Catherine L. Craig Department of Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06525
A systematic survey of the spectral properties of unpigmented silks spun by spiders showed marked differences in their reflectance properties. Phylogenetically primitive spiders in the suborder Mygalomorphae spin silks characterized by a spectral peak in the ultraviolet (UV) region of the spectrum (