Spiders helped Britain win the Second World War – because their silk was used to construct the crosshairs in gunsights.
A retired optical technician has revealed how he would be given spiders collected from the Yorkshire Moors so he could use their silk.
‘I don’t know the type of spider, all I know is that they were given to me in a matchbox,’ said Ken Bass, who as a teenager worked at Kershaws, an optical company in Leeds during the war.
The silk, which is finer than human hair, would be teased from the spider and fixed across the lens used in the sights. Mr Bass said spider’s silk was the preferred material because, unlike some of the wire sometimes used, it did not break with the vibrations.
The spiders, having done their bit for the war effort, were returned to the moors in their matchboxes and eventually into retirement once a way was found of etching the crosshairs. – Daily Mail