What are web spinners and how they’re responsible for damage in your premises?

Web-spinners look a little like earwigs or termites, with small eyes, thread-like antennae and long bodies. Unlike earwigs, the tail structures are soft and jointed, and the wings are darker than those of termites. The head is broad and carries biting jaws.

Several invasive insect species have become established in Texas. Some of these species include red-imported fire ants, argentine ants and Formosan subterranean termites. One little known invasive insect species in Texas, Oligotoma nigra, originates from India, and it is considered a nuisance pest in urban and suburban areas of the state due to their attraction to artificial light sources, such as porch lights and street lights. This species is commonly known as the “black webspinner” and residents will most likely encounter males only, as females are not capable of flight. When these insects are not swarming in large numbers around porch lights they spend most of their time within their underground nests where they remain hidden from humans.

Black webspinners are around ‘35 of an inch in length with a dark brown to black exterior. While black webspinners are not considered an ecological threat in the US, they do consume non-vascular plants, such as moss and lichen, and they may move into yards in order to feed on dead plant matter. Recent research has revealed that black webspinners also feed on grasses and ornamental plants.

Webspinners dwell in below ground nests where colonies construct tunnels coated with silk that the insects produce from specialized organs. Webspinners spend most of their lifespan below the ground in order to avoid predators. These insects have adapted to their underground habitat by developing particularly muscular hind legs that allow them to move backwards rapidly within narrow underground tunnels. Additional adaptations include thin elongated bodies, and males possess oval-shaped wings that allow for unobstructed underground tunnel movement.

There is no way to determine with certainty as to how non-native black webspinners arrived in Texas, but experts believe that this invasive pest species arrived in the state via a shipment of date palms imported from Egypt. Black webspinners are distributed throughout the Southwest, and controlling nuisance swarms around homes is often unnecessary, as most residents in areas where these insects are abundant have become accustomed to waiting out swarms.

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Webspinners or footspinners belong to the Phylum Arthropoda, Class Insecta, Subclass Pterygota, and Order Embioptera. They are a small group of mostly tropical and subtropical insects.

Embioptera are found on every continent except Antarctica, with the highest density and diversity of species being in the tropics; some also extend into the temperate regions of Europe. Interestingly, they are usually absent or poorly represented on islands. Webspinners are mostly restricted to warmer locations and are found as far north as Virginia

All webspinners have similar body forms and range in length from 15 to 20 mm. Coloration varies in specimens and ranges from brown to black, or from pink to red. Species are alike in appearance, having long, narrow, and highly flexible bodies, along with short legs. The first segment of the thorax is small and narrow, and the second and third are larger and broader, especially in the males, where they include the flight muscles. The head has forward-facing mouthparts projecting with chewing mandibles and they possess kidney-shaped compound eyes with no ocelli (simple eyes).

Two pairs of wings occur in webspinners, similar in size and shape and having few cross veins, with long and narrow simple venation. This morphology allows them to fold forward and enables the male to dart backward, permitting easy movement through their narrow silk galleries, either forward or backward, without resulting in damage.

A lot of them are silken habitats, known as galleries, created by insects called webspinners. While they’re usually underground or sequestered in burrows in fall and winter – you’re more likely to see the insects in early spring or summer – their silk is visible year-round in many parks and open spaces. They’re typically in areas that aren’t too wet or shady, nibbling on lichen, dead leaves and moss underneath their silken canopies.

Webspinners, related to walking sticks and praying mantises, produce the finest silk in the animal kingdom. But unlike spiders, which produce silk from spinnerets on the tip of their abdomens, or caterpillars that produce it with salivary glands, webspinners have special silk ejectors on their front feet.

“Their feet are clothed with silk ejectors, so they look like the Lord of the Rings’ hobbits,” said Edgerly-Rooks. “When they step, hundreds of fibers come out.”

The extremely narrow silk threads are essential to the webspinners’ survival. The silk serves as the ‘webspinners’ home, umbrella and invisibility cloak, all in one. Webspinners are susceptible to drowning in heavy rains, so the silk shields the insects from water with its amazing waterproof qualities.

“They can’t handle water. When water hits the silk, drops sit on top, like on the paint of a just-waxed car. “They are very fragile insects, so it’s not wise to try to pick them up”.

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