I KNOW!!! I couldn't believe it either. I even grabbed my kids and let them watch it. It actually would take one leg and gather up the web, and then wrap it around another leg...I still can't really figure out how it did it. But, anyway...it was amazing to watch, and it just loaded the web onto it's back, and crawled under the awing. Type it into you search engine...I think there is some sort of video of one doing that. It was the strangest thing that I have ever seen. lol I was like...what the ........
Check out this youtube video of a spider taking it's web down..
Yeah, they take them down but they don't pack them up to use later. They apparently eat the web then spin a new one.
"Nearly every species of spider uses silk in one way or another. The stereotypical spider web is known as the orb web (see image). Although everyone knows how these webs look they are not the most common web that spiders can make. In general there are four types of websâcobwebs, sheet webs, funnel webs and orb webs. In the north country only three families of spiders use the orb web type. The rest use the other variety of webs.
Construction of the orb web is fascinating stuff. First of all, the spiders need to take down and remake their webs each night, or at least every other day. All the proteins used in making the silk are recovered by eating the old web. Radioactive tagging has shown that 80-90 percent of the initial web material shows up in the new web, even though it may be only a half hour between eating the old web and spinning the new one.
It takes the average orb web weaver about one hour to eat the old web and spin the new web. Most are constructed a couple feet off the ground and are designed for one reasonâto capture insects (of which they are not) for food. All orb webs are constructed basically the same way. The main threads are called spokes and anchor the web in place. The spokes of the web are not sticky. That is how the resident spider travels around the web without getting stuck themselves. The web that connects the spokes and spirals around the web are sticky and hold the insects in place until the spider can get there."
Spiders may live IN a home in Colorado...in the winter...but, they cannot survive outside. Trust me...that web had been there for awhile on that window. It is just WAY to cold there....they cannot survive outside. There were other entrances to that home...there is no way that an intruder slid that grate back without disturbing that web, and no way that a spider spun a web on that exact window...on that exact night. I would believe that an intruder slid down the chimney, before I would believe that he crawled through that window.
and regarding the spider being domant in winter:
"House Spider Myths
Myth: Spiders come into houses in the fall to get out of the cold.
Fact: This seemingly simple idea conceals many false assumptions. In reality, house spiders are usually not the same species as the yard or garden spiders outside the house.
House spiders belong to a small number of species specially adapted for indoor conditions (constant climate, poor food supply, very poor water supply). Some house spider species have been living indoors at least since the days of the Roman Empire, and are seldom to be found outside, even in their native countries (usually Europe). Many of these species now live in houses worldwide, and most have been carried by commerce to more than one continent. Few are adapted to North American outdoor environments.
House spiders colonize new houses by egg sacs carried on furniture, building materials and so forth. They usually spend their entire life cycle in, on or under their native building. If a large number appear at a specific season, it is usually late summer (August and September) -- not a notably cold time of year! -- rather than fall, and their appearance coincides with the mating season of the given species. What you are seeing is sexually mature males wandering in search of mates.
The females and young remain hidden for the most part, in crawlspaces, storage areas and other neglected rooms; wall and floor voids; behind furniture and appliances, etc. Generally fewer than 5% of the spiders you see indoors have ever been outdoors.
In contrast, outdoor spider species are not adapted to indoor conditions. Any North American spider that needed artificial shelter for the winter, would have been extinct long before Europeans arrived! Spiders are "cold-blooded" and not attracted to warmth. They don't shiver or get uncomfortable when it's cold, they just become less active and eventually, dormant. Most temperate zone spiders have enough "antifreeze" in their bodies that they won't freeze at any temperature down to -5° C.; some can get colder. The few typical outdoor spiders that do end up indoors, die or at least don't reproduce."
