Researchers have discovered that silk can carry vibrations across many frequencies, relaying information to spiders about prey, parts of the web that may need repair, and even potential mates, according to a report by Discovery News.

Research teams from the universities of Oxford, Strathclyde, and Sheffield fired bullets and lasers at spider silk to study how it vibrated.

By using high-speed cameras to record the silks movements as it was hit, the lasers were used to give the researchers measurements of the smallest vibrations, according to Discovery News.

A study on the discovery will be published in the upcoming issue of the journal Advanced Materials.

Researchers found that spider silk can "carry tunes." The tunes, in this sense, are actually vibrations at specific frequencies, according to Discovery News.

The spiders are able to "hear" vibrating frequencies by listening with their legs, through organs calls slit sensillae.

"Most spiders have poor eyesight and rely almost exclusively on the vibration of the silk in their web for sensory information," research lead Beth Mortimer, of the Oxford Silk Group at Oxford University, said in a statement. 

Despite the fact that they have poor eyesight, the vibrations make up for it by alerting the spider to its next meal, its next mate, and the condition of its web.

"By plucking the silk like a guitar string and listening to the 'echoes' the spider can also assess the condition of its web," Mortimer said in a statement.

Once an area of the web needs to be repaired, the spider can "tune" the silk adjusting its tensions, properties, and how it interconnects with other areas, according to Discovery News. 

"These findings further demonstrate the outstanding properties of many spider silks that are able to combine exceptional toughness with the ability to transfer delicate information," the paper's author, Professor Fritz Vollrath, of the Oxford Silk Group at Oxford University, said in a statement.

Vollrath and his colleagues think that there is two valuable outcomes from their research.

The first is that they learn more about the life of spiders and the qualities of their silk. The second outcome is that we gain more insight that could be helpful outside of the arachnid world, according to Discovery News.

The properties of the silk, said Vollrath, "would be very useful in lightweight engineering and might lead to novel, built-in 'intelligent' sensors and actuators."

See Now: OnePlus 6: How Different Will It Be From OnePlus 5?