This is a series of posts on interesting and unusual words and phrases.
The first set of words are adjectives that describe a shape and are often used in botany, mineralogy, and describing artistic forms.
The word for today is aciniform: of the shape of a cluster of grapes, from the Latin, acinus.
Aciniform spider’s silk:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369702111700578
Structure of spinnerets
The paired spinnerets have one to three segments. They are highly maneuverable for silk spinning and may be quite short or relatively long (as long as the abdomen in some mygalomorph spiders). The end segment of each spinneret has many spigots – hollow, hair-like silk outlets connected to particular paired silk glands within the abdomen. Each gland opens on the spinnerets either via one or two spigots (ampullate glands), several spigots (cylindrical glands), or many spigots (pyriform and aciniform glands). In addition, the cylindrical and aciniform glands open onto two spinnerets. https://australian.museum/learn/animals/spiders/silk-the-spiders-success-story/
Steward Archives 