Slashdot Mirror
Millions of Spiders Seen In Mass Dispersal Event In Nova Scotia
Freshly Exhumed writes A bizarre and oddly beautiful display of spider webs have been woven across a large field along a walking trail in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. "Well it's acres and acres; it's a sea of web," said Allen McCormick. Prof. Rob Bennett, an expert on spiders who works at the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, BC, Canada, said tiny, sheet-web weaver spiders known as Erigoninae linyphiidae most likely left the webs. Bennett said the spiders cast 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. Bennett said it's a mystery why these spiders take off en masse.
Once you find the link to the article (after links to every vaguely related topic) you'll find a very underwhelming picture of some bits of web in a field. I was expecting something like the scale and impressiveness of a crop circle in web form, not a few bits of tatty web on the tops of some long grass.
Millions of tiny spiders in a field and then airborne. Who needs sleep, eh?
It seems to have become the Nature Channel with topics.
At least if they come across to the UK then UKIP will protect us
Hah, where I live we have 8 feet spiders!
I'm not too proud to admit I got the reference :)
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
That is nothing I have seen fields covered in spider gossamer around Flatford Mill, in Constable (the painter) country ata bout this time of year. I have been told that spiders on these 'balloons' can escape earth gravety
...and thanks for all the flies?
This year, I sat on camping chair at the edge of a cricket pitch on a fine July evening in the UK. Over the 90 minutes I and the other couple of dozen spectators were repeatedly brushing tiny spiders off our heads. Average height of grass, 1 cm, cf 1 m for those previously comfortable humans.
Only question is did we arrive in a normal migration cycle or did the appearance of a hundredfold increase in launchpad height stimulate the spiders?
Ricky or Bubbles?
This is a spider.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Just remember that 'one or two millimetres long' falls well into 'trivially inhale-able by accident' territory.
Think of all those little spider feet tickling in your sinuses!
If I've learned nothing else from Harry Potter... obviously a Basilisk has invaded Cape Breton. Beware, Mudbloods!
The newly hatched spiders had to go somewhere after emerging from the beanie babies...
That's the comment I clicked the link to see.
...or do they just not want to live on this planet anymore?
I, for one, welcome our new arachnid overlords! http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/...
Gently reply
which was mega-awesome:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/... [wow look at that spelling]
I saw that episode.
National Geographic did a story about spiders fleeing to higher ground when facing floods. The massed spiders end up enclosing entire trees with their webs.
http://news.nationalgeographic...
Ballooning
They can take my LifeAlert pendant when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
Please explain.
Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!