Spider silk transmits vibrations that reveal a lot about prey, other spiders and even the condition of a web itself, new research out of England has found.

Researchers from Oxford, Strathclyde, and Sheffield universities fired bullets and lasers at the silky webs built by spiders to better understand how the structures vibrate.

They discovered that, when plucked like the string of a guitar, the silk reacts across a wide range of frequencies, relaying an array of data to a spider.

The research team learned that, when compared to other materials, spider silk can be tuned to a wide range of harmonics.

The study, soon to be published in the journal Advanced Materials, not only tells a lot about spiders, but could weave the way to new forms of technology, such as light-weight sensors.

"Most spiders have poor eyesight and rely almost exclusively on the vibration of the silk in their web for sensory information," lead researcher Beth Mortimer of the Oxford Silk Group at Oxford University said in a university news release. "The sound of silk can tell them what type of meal is entangled in their net and about the intentions and quality of a prospective mate. By plucking the silk like a guitar string and listening to the 'echoes' the spider can also assess the condition of its web."

A spider, the research showed, can control and adjust both the inherent properties of the silk, as well as the tensions and connectivity of the silk threads that make up the web.

To study the sonic properties of the spider's threads, the researchers used ultra-high-speed cameras to film the threads as they responded to the impact of bullets. Lasers were also used to take measurements of even the smallest vibration.

"These findings further demonstrate the outstanding properties of many spider silks that are able to combine exceptional toughness with the ability to transfer delicate information," said study author Professor Fritz Vollrath of the Oxford Silk Group at Oxford. "These are traits that would be very useful in light-weight engineering and might lead to novel, built-in 'intelligent' sensors and actuators."

Said Chris Holland from Sheffield, another of the study's authors, "Spider silks are well known for their impressive mechanical properties, but the vibrational properties have been relatively overlooked and now we find that they are also an awesome communication tool. Yet again spiders continue to impress us in more ways than we can imagine."