Madagascar Spider Sweatshop Yields 11 x 4 Shimmering Saffron Textile

Human beings have certainly mastered the fine art of pimping out insects -- as far back as 6000 BC, a thriving industry has literally been spun out of the gossamer threads that moth caterpillars produce.

However, it is always at the expense of millions of silkworm pupae lives -- prior to the adult moths emerging from their cocoons, people either pierce the cocoons with a needle  or dip them in boiling water so that they can kill the creature within and safely unravel their outer silk shell as one continuous thread.

By contrast, the million+ female Madagascar golden orb spiders that were collected to work on Simon Peers' and Nicholas Godley 11-foot by 4-foot textile, now on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, were somewhat luckier.

Able to grow to size of a small adult human hand, their webs can span as large as 6 feet and the reason the fiber they produce is so coveted is not just because it is already endowed with color, but more importantly because its tensile strength is known to be five to six times stronger than steel by weight.

Instead of being mercilessly snuffed out for their silken treasures, Peers and Godley had their staff carefully harness up to 3,000 daily into a silk-extraction machine, tap them of their naturally saffron tinted thread (sometimes 400 yards in length per spider) and then release them back into the wild the same day.

Golden orbs are known to regenerate their silk in one week's time, and while some died during the silk extraction process, detailed spreadsheets kept track of the number of spiders used, their silk production and casualty rate.

When you gaze at their golden textile, bear in mind that it weighs 2.6 pounds and considering the fact that fourteen thousand spiders yield just 1 ounce of silk, it is no wonder why this weaving project consumed 4 years and half a million dollars in financial resources to produce.

It's hard to imagine that any spider would submit to the removal of their silk without putting up a fight (oh yes, they definitely BITE), but I learned that Madagascar golden orb spiders are almost completely blind, only vaguely able to detect changes in light -- vibrational changes in their surroundings help them to navigate and locate tangled meals in their webs.

I don't know what to make of this whole thing. One one hand, I appreciate that the project coordinators tried to spare as many arachnid lives as possible while serving their own selfish needs.

On the other hand, sure, the textile they produced is pretty, but it's also insane on so many levels. Would you spend 4 years and bucket loads of money imprisoning and then releasing spiders to create one single piece of fabric? Do you think that the production of any silk-based fabric is humane or green?