Golden Orb Weaver

Okay, first of all, get over it.  It can't do anything to you.  It is just a picture.  Some people get sooo creeped out just looking at a picture of a spider.

I saw this beautiful golden orb weaver recently and couldn't help but admire the spider with it's inate ability to build a web that would be the envy of any architectect who has ever built a suspension bridge.  When you get over being scared of them long enough to think about what they do, you have to admire them.  They have to figure out spacially where to find several anchor sites so they build the nest in a vertical, flat plane.  One of the questions that arises in my mind is, How far can they see?

Look how this one has reinforced the center strand of it's web.  It looks like it may have added as many as ten strands to that part of the web.