Thousands of Spiders Weave Massive Web Over Tasmania
Have you ever wondered what spiders do when the area they live in floods? Probably not, but we’re going to answer that question for you today anyway. And the answer, as you’ve probably guessed by now, is not that they all simply drown. Spiders are resilient bastards, and that’s why the answer is WAY more horrifying than that.
As reported by Mashable, thousands of spiders living in Tasmania, Australia have escaped recent floods by seeking higher ground and quite literally coming together to form a massive, unbroken web over the island state. Trees in the area are currently covered by the web, and the black dots all over it sure as hell aren’t poppy seeds.
They’re spiders. They’re totally spiders.
The phenomenon is known as “mass ballooning.”
“A lot of spiders do it as a way of getting around, because spiders don’t have wings, they can’t fly, so they float around on strands of silk,” the Australian Museum’s spider expert Graham Milledge told Mashable. “Under certain environmental conditions you get these mass balloonings. In Australia it seems to be floods that trigger it, most commonly.”
“Most of them are either ground-dwelling or living in low areas, so they’ll return when it’s safe to enter their habitat,” he added.
Life finds a way. Check out some photos of the terrifying sight below, taken by local Ken Puccetti.
Categorized:News
