“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the spider to the fly;
“’Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy.
The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,
And I have many pretty things to show when you are there.”
“O no, no,” said the little fly, “to ask me is in vain,
For who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again.”
This early 19th century poem by Mary Howitt paints a picture of a cunning spider trying to entice a fly into its web. In real life web-spinning spiders don’t try to inveigle flies, or any other form of insect, into their webs. Spider webs are spun across an area where prey is likely to fly or wander through, and (hopefully) blunder into (and get entangled in) the web. According to research, spiders collectively consume somewhere between 400 and 800 million tons of insects per year. Spider webs work pretty well then!
