Fig. 1. Experimental set-up of the monitored forced silking process. The immobilized spider (a) is placed upside down, and the tip of fibre (b) is fixed with a magnet (c) to the load cell (d). The tip of a micropipette perforating the plastic bag (e) is used as the gas inlet. The silking process proceeds by displacing the crosshead of the testing machine at constant speed.