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.

Comments

Underwhelming picture

[raburton]

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.

Re:Underwhelming picture

[Xest]

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

No it's not. Have you seen how fucking cold it gets in Canada in the winter?

Spiders flee before it

[Sez Zero]

If I've learned nothing else from Harry Potter... obviously a Basilisk has invaded Cape Breton. Beware, Mudbloods!