If Spider-Man really could do “whatever a spider can”, he ought to shoot webs from somewhere less salubrious than his hands. All spiders spin silk from their rear ends, using special organs called spinnerets. But one group – the tarantulas – can also shoot silk from their feet, and they use this ability to climb up sheer vertical surfaces.

Tarantulas have been kept as pets for decades, but their silk-spinning feet were only discovered in 2006 by Stanislav Gorb from the Max Planck Institute. Gorb watched Costa Rican zebra tarantulas climbing up glass plates, and saw that they left behind silken footprints – dozens of fibres, just a thousandth of a millimetre wide.

As the spider climbs, four of