Emergent properties in the behaviour of a virtual spider robot

Abstract

Using a virtual spider robot, we studied hypotheses about the weaving behaviour of orb spiders. Our model spiders built virtual webs that mimicked perfectly the visual architecture of real webs of the garden cross spider Araneus diadematus. The matching of capture spiral and auxiliary spiral pitch was an apparently emergent property in both types of web. This validated our interpretation of the garden spider's web–building decision rules, which use strictly local interactions with previously placed threads to generate global architecture.