Spider silk is known to be extremely strong. And so a Japanese researcher used thousands of strands of spider silk to create a set of violin strings. And the impressive part is that they actually sound incredible compared to the normal violin strings.

Nara Medical University's Shigeyoshi Osaki used over 300 captive female Nephila maculata spiders. Osaki says that these spiders generate the so called "dragline silk" necessary to create bundles with a tensile strength sufficient for mounting on a violin.

It must have taken a long time to assemble them and you bet. Each string was assembled from anywhere between 9,000 and 15,000 individual strands, twisted together in tightly wound trios of bundled silk. BBC says that each string was capable of withstanding even more tension than the popular aluminum coated, nylon core violin strings we usually see.

"Several professional violinists reported that spider strings... generated a preferable timbre, being able to create a new music," Osaki told the BBC. "The violin strings are a novel practical use for spider silk as a kind of high value-added product, and offer a distinctive type of timbre for both violin players and music lovers worldwide."

The researchers' findings will be described in greater detail in a forthcoming issue of Physical Review Letters. Check out more over on the BBC.
Top image via