Rare Spider Silk on Exhibit at AMNH

A spectacular and extremely rare textile, woven from golden-colored silk thread produced by more than one million spiders in Madagascar is now on display at the American Museum of Natural History in the Grand Gallery.

Drawing on the legacy of a French missionary, Jacob Paul Camboué, this contemporary textile measures 11 feet by 4 feet and took four years to make using a painstaking technique.

Hear from Dr. Ian Tattersall, Curator, Division of Anthropology at AMNH, as well as Nicholas Godley, co-creator and owner of the silk along with his partner Simon Peers as they discuss this rare work.

[WorldWalker]

Suddenly that ancient greek story about a lady that was a weaver being turned into a spider takes on a whole different view.

[luke-ilnr]

My backyard is full of these spiders, I've collected some fibers and put them together, at first its not very noticeable but as you add up the string starts to get yellow. Its pretty cool

[apopsis]

Ive never wanted to steal anything more in my life

[Pasakoye]

Very beautiful, it's cool that that's the actual thread color and not white silk dyed. Even if it was made from white spider silk it would be amazing.

[Dragonese]

This is the most breathtakingly beautiful creation I have ever viewed. A joint project
as it were between man and creature. As I thought of the article I had seen in the
paper some time ago, I prayed it would be on You Tube....and it was. Thank you so much for sharing.

[HOLLISKID]

Bucket list #67

:Touch the spider silk.

[TerraRone]

It's probably not still on exhibit now, but if it were, the great distance I live from this museum is the only thing that is stopping me from going to jail. I would be completely unable to resist trying to break the glass and touch it, just out of pure, irresistible curiousity.

[stationplaza]

Unlike silk worms, spiders cannot be kept together in large groups. Because spiders are notorious cannibals. This is probably one of the main reasons, why spider silk cannot be produced on a large commercially viable scale.

[arteres]

Made in Madagascar, produced in Madagascar, never shown to Madagascar.
Simon Peers takes and does not share. This is very unfortunate.

[MrSnigleN]

3 Years later ! THEY SHOT AT IT !! Its acually 10x times stronger than kevlar, and they used 4 layers of the spider silk and mixed with some humna skin and bam it resisted a bullet ! so 3 years later they finally took a shot at it :) youre welcome xD

[junnexgolem]

wow. SPIDER-SILK CLOAK. spider-siLk cLoak is indestructibLe. equipped creature is INDESTRUCTIBLE!

[EVLWNS]

If and when I become World Emperor, I'm going to have my royal clothes made out of this material. That way I'll both be bullet proof and look completely awesome.

[jean-pierresalazar]

Funny, I landed here after finding a banana spider in my garage. I better start collecting!

[bam]

The patterns on this yellow textile reminds me of the "crop circle" designs/codes--no wonder it seems "mystical."

[macaronicheese]

may i respectfully disagree w/ you NickRoman?
an award show for actors would be a gross undermining of the beauty and grandeur of this magnificent piece art.

[TheSHADOWMAN]

THIS IS GOING TO SPRING A SUPER HERO IN NEW YORK

[Robbyd]

You didn’t even give credit to the person who made it....

[fenrirgg]

Maybe the bullet won't make a hole in the clothe, but you'll have a hole made by a beautiful bullet covered of silk haha. Spider silk is very flexible.

[Kaduos]

@CardShowOff There are varying degrees of spider silk strength. Tensile strength, in general, is comparable to steel (how far it can be stretched before deforming permanently), extremely ductile (stretching before breaking), and the strongest known silk (Darwin's Bark Spider) is 10 times tougher than Kevlar, though most silks are just comparable to kevlar, if a little less.

[rcmeyerson]

@plasticbarf They've started to breed goats that have the protein from spider silk in their milk. Its extremely strong compared to silkworm silk. But, it's hard to breed spiders and farm them, because they don't do well in groups. Hence the goat loophole.