Thousands Of Spiders Spin Colossal Web To Give Us All Nightmares

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Arachnophobes beware you’re in for a scare!

A gargantuan spider’s web has been spun by thousands of spiders in the trees near Launceston in Tasmania, Australia, blanketing the hole area in sticky silk and presumably devastating the local fly population.

The terrifying photo’s were taken by local Ken Puccetti and experts believe that heavy flooding in the area’s led to the colossal web, as spiders have been forced up into the trees to escape the murky waters, Mashable reports.

The collection manager in arachnology at the Australian Museum, Graham Milledge, explained that the phenomena’s called ‘mass ballooning’.

He explained:

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.

Under certain environmental conditions you get these mass balloonings, in Australia it seems to be floods that trigger it, most commonly.

Ballooning is common with smaller species of spiders and juveniles and they apparently do it individually, but people often don’t notice because of their small size.

Milledge explained that as the waters recede the spiders will make their way back down the tree and return to their safe ground level habitats, although our answer would probably have been just to cut our losses and burn down the wood.

Arachnophobes may want to give the trees a miss, unless they fancy the fright of their life…

Tom Percival

More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.

Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.

He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.