It took weavers in Madagascar four years to complete a golden 11-by-4-foot tapestry made completely of spider silk. The only one of its kind in the world, the tapestry is kept safe in a glass case in the American Museum of Natural History. Christopher Joyce of NPR has an audio story.

The naturally golden silk for the project was created by Nephila madagascariensis spiders. The project was the brainchild of Simon Peers, a textile maker who lives in Madagascar, and fashion expert Nicholas Godley, who hired the local weavers. "The spiders are harnessed ... held down in a delicate way," Godley says, "so you need people to do this who are very tactile so the spiders are not harmed. So there's a chain of about 80 people who go out every morning at four o'clock, collect spiders, we get them in by 10 o'clock. They're in boxes, they're numbered, and then as they get silked, about 20 minutes later, they get released back into nature."