The image on the left is that of a cross spider, Araneus diadematus, lying in wait in its web. The cross spider, just like most spiders, produces silk to create its web to capture its prey.
There are other researches done to study and analyze the structure of the spider web to discover what makes spider webs resilient and how these properties relate to the molecular structure of silk fibers. A key property of spider silk that helps make webs robust is that it can stretch and soften at first when pulled, and then stiffen again as the force of the pulling increases.
The UC Berkeley study states that the electrostatic charge generated by insects as they flap their wings help deform the silk web before capturing them; increasing the effectiveness of the spider web in capturing its prey.
UC Berkeley post-doctoral fellow Victor Manuel Ortega-Jimenez used electrically charged dead insects, a spider web, and high speed video cameras to test his hypothesis. Dropping the electrically dead flies into the web while filming it, showed that before the insects hit the web, the silk deforms and touches the insects; ensuring capture.
