Movie 1

Attraction of cribellate capture threads to differently charged objects.
About 1 cm long pieces of cribellate capture threads were taken from the web of U. plumipes. When approaching this sample with either (1) a negatively charged piece of foamed plastic, (2) a positively charged glass rod or (3) with a fruit fly (D. melanogaster), charged by flapping its wings, the capture threads behave like a dipole and are attracted to all objects.
Please note that the severity of deformation due to the attraction depends not only on the charge quantity, but also on the length of the piece of thread, because longer pieces are more easily deformable.