4 Acre Spider Web (complete with spiders)

[Kaere]

Ohgodohgodohgodohgod *shudders*

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/4-acre-spider-web-engulfs-building/

[Rockhopper]

Arachnophobia Ka?

Tim.

[Mordae]

That is so cool

The webs, not the arachnophobia

[Rogue]

[Kaere]

LOL... one doesn't need to be an arachnaphobe in order to be skeeved out by spider webs so strong that they pull industrial lighting out of place or 35,000+ critters per square metre

[Rockhopper]

Scientists are still trying to find a synthetic material that is as strong as a spider's web. Nylon comes close but no banana!

Tim.

[Agartha]

Wow! Imagine those millions of little spiders falling on you!!!

Spiders are actually very useful little things, they eat nasty creatures like mosquitoes, for example.

[Lenzabi]

spider silk, for it's weight as strong as steel, yet so light weight.

[Rockhopper]

Wow! Imagine those millions of little spiders falling on you!!!

Spiders are actually very useful little things, they eat nasty creatures like mosquitoes, for example.

Indeed they are Ags, as long as they are not the Aussie bitey type ones!

Tim.

[Rockhopper]

spider silk, for it's weight as strong as steel, yet so light weight.

Yup, that's why scientists are trying to emulate it. Carbon nano fibres look pretty damned good!

Tim.

[Lenzabi]

spider silk, for it's weight as strong as steel, yet so light weight.

Yup, that's why scientists are trying to emulate it. Carbon nano fibres look pretty damned good!

Tim.

The carbon nanotube fibres may be even stronger than spider silk, space elevator anyone?

[Agartha]

Spiders are little wonderful things!!.... non counting the deadly ones, of course. 

[Kaere]

More spidey goodness!

...ballooning, that's exactly what they did at the end of Charlotte's Web

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/millions-of-spiders-cover-cape-breton-field-in-webs-1.2837767

A bizarre and oddly beautiful display of spider webs have been woven across a large field along a walking trail in Cape Breton.

"Well it's acres and acres; it's a sea of web," said Allen McCormick.

He was out for a walk on the Summit walking trails in Scotchtown when the field of webs stopped him in his tracks.

McCormick said a light dew last week made the webs stand out.

"It was kind of breathtaking, actually. I've never seen anything like it. You see lots of nature, but I've never seen a field covered in web before."

McCormick started snapping pictures.

No one he talked to had any idea why the field had filled with webs so quickly.

"Maybe Spiderman does live in Cape Breton," joked McCormick.

'Mass dispersal events'

Prof. Rob Bennett may have the answers though; he's an expert on spiders who works at the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria.

Bennett examined McCormick's pictures. He said tiny, sheet-web weaver spiders known as Erigoninae linyphiidae most likely left the webs.

The little spiders are one or two millimetres long.

"For some reason, mostly unknown, these types of spiders are known to do these mass dispersal events. The spiders decide collectively that it's time to leave that area."


'It's just the cumulative effect of all those spiders each producing a single line of silk.'

- Prof. Rob Bennett

Bennett said the spiders do that by casting a web net to catch the wind and float away in a process known as ballooning.

The webs in the field are the spiders' drag lines, left behind as they climb to the top of long grass to be whisked away by the wind.

"It's just the cumulative effect of all those spiders each producing a single line of silk and leaving it behind wherever they roam," he said.

"They might go backwards and forwards, up and down, sideways, they may jump over to another plant and that sort of thing. It doesn't take long for that number of spiders to produce quite a noticeable quantity of silk."

Bennett said it's a mystery why these spiders take off en masse.

It's believed that weather or a disruption to the spiders' environment causes them to leave, and researchers in the U.K. are trying to figure that out.

Bennett said people shouldn't be worried about running into millions of ballooning spiders, as they pose no risk to humans and should be considered friends.

"They're out there doing us a great service in terms of naturally controlling insect populations in forest, fields and agricultural systems," he explained.

[Lenzabi]

That is a lot of left over para webs

[Aianawa aianawa nui]

wow

[Rockhopper]

wow

Double WOW!

είδος.

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