Silk-Stringing Insects

Mulberry-munching worms aren't the only creatures capable of threading the natural world with ultra-fine silk.

"Most people are unaware that bees and ants produce silk, but they do and its molecular structure is very different to that of … moth and spider silk," said Tara Sutherland, an entomologist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in Australia. She and her team study protein structure in silks produced by insects, and some of the work was recently detailed in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.

"The cocoon and nest silks we looked at consist of coiled coils," she said, in which several helix-like proteins are wound together. "This structure produces a lightweight, very tough silk."

Honeybee larvae produce silk to reinforce the wax cells in which they grow up, bulldog ant larvae spin single cocoons for protection, bumblebee larvae spin cocoons within wax hives (later used to store pollen and honey) and weaver ants hold up their larvae as "tools" to fashion nests out of leaf litter.

Coiled coil silks are common in sting-ready social insects, and the ability likely evolved about 155 million years ago. Sutherland's silk research is part of the joint CSIRO and Grains Research & Development Corporation (GRDC) Crop Biofactories Initiative (CBI).

—LiveScience Staff

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