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News.Com in Australia has a story and pictures of a pestilence of spiders that happens every few years when the weather is just right.
It's the strange phenomenon everyone's talking about. The unearthly sight of hundreds of gossamer white threads floating through the air and settling on fields and houses.
...
The astonishing spectacle usually occurs in May or August in Australia, when sunshine follows rainfall. It is rare because it requires an unusual weather pattern for this time of year, which is when spiders are hatching. The spiderlings are light enough to float on threads, sometimes for hundreds of kilometres at up to 20,000 feet. They have even been spotted by aircraft.
Its a migration tactic used by juvenile spiders. Spin a bit of web, and then be blown great distances, landing en masse.
The site has photos of fields covered by webs, as well the webs covered with adult spiders. An arachnophobe's worst nightmare.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday May 21 2015, @01:45AM
Very likely, they are harmless: there's little to no biological pressure for venomous spiders to migrate long distances
Besides, there are beautiful [google.com] spiders [xs4all.nl] here as well, I wouldn't like to have you destroy them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Funny) by EvilSS on Thursday May 21 2015, @01:54AM
Harmless? So unlike practically every thing else in Australia. That must make for a nice change of pace.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday May 21 2015, @02:34AM
Harmless? So unlike practically every thing else in Australia. That must make for a nice change of pace.
Overall, they're about as harmless as some of the sheep [1].
Most spiders are "high hazard" but "low risk". They can be a bit venomous, but they're unlikely to actually bite you because you can always hear them walking around (noisy buggers, they keep you awake at night sometimes).
[1] "Dangerous Mammals, Reptiles, Amphibians, Birds, Fish, Jellyfish, Insects, Spiders, Crustaceans, Grasses, Trees, Mosses and Lichens of Terror Incognita" Volume 29c, Part Three
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Thursday May 21 2015, @02:39AM
Everything except a funnel web seems to know that even if it bites you, you can still kill it.
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Thursday May 21 2015, @02:46AM
and box jellyfish, salties and maybe brown snakes.
hmmm
(Score: 1) by kramulous on Thursday May 21 2015, @07:20AM
In all fairness, you'd be hard pressed to even see those things.
You should see the size of the fucker on the wall behind me as I type this. Diameter tip-to-tip ... 15cm. She's been hanging around for a couple of weeks now. Would love to know what she's feeding on.