# New Spider Family Tree Tries to Untangle the Evolution of Webs April 27, 2018 - [ News ](/news-categories/news) A long-running and fiercely debated question among scientists "Did spiders evolve to spin the orb web only once? Or multiple times?" may have an answer in a [new study in Current Biology](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982218304226), led by a team of researchers including **Gonzalo Giribet** and postdoctoral fellow, **Rosa Fernández**. The research team compared approximately 2,500 genes from 159 spider species to draw a new family tree containing multiple distinct branches of orb-weaving spiders. Based on their analysis, the team believes the ability to make orb webs arose multiple times. Media: [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/science/spider-web-evolution.html?rref=collection/timestopic/Spiders&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection) ##### Image: The work of a long-jawed orb-weaver in Queensland, Australia. The new tree shows that spiders that make sticky orb webs are all closely related, but the makers of non-sticky orb webs have an ancestor that didn’t use a web for hunting. Credit Gustavo Hormiga See also:- [ Faculty News ](/news-type/faculty-news) - [ Postdoc News ](/news-type/postdoc-news) - [ 2018 ](/news-year/2018)