Giant Spiderweb Cloaks Land in Aitoliko, Greece (bbc.com)

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Giant Spiderweb Cloaks Land in Aitoliko, Greece (bbc.com)

Posted by msmash on Friday September 21, 2018 @04:47AM from the meanwhile-in-Greece dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Warmer weather conditions in western Greece have led to the eerie spectacle of a 300m-long spiderweb in Aitoliko. A vast area of greenery has been covered by the web, reports the Daily Hellas. Experts say it is a seasonal phenomenon, caused by Tetragnatha spiders, which can build large nests for mating. An increase in the mosquito population is also thought to have contributed to the rise in the number of spiders. Maria Chatzaki, professor of molecular biology and genetics at Democritus University of Thrace, Greece said high temperatures, sufficient humidity and food created the ideal conditions for the species to reproduce in large numbers. She told Newsit.gr: "It's as if the spiders are taking advantage of these conditions and are having a kind of a party. They mate, they reproduce and provide a whole new generation. "These spiders are not dangerous for humans and will not cause any damage to the area's flora. The spiders will have their party and will soon die."

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Siderman, we built you a new home by pgmrdlm · 2018-09-21 04:49 · Score: 2

Hope you like it... You now have room for guests.

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Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
1. Re:Siderman, we built you a new home by PolygamousRanchKid+ · 2018-09-21 05:32 · Score: 2
  
  You now have room for guests.
  Wi nøt trei a høliday in Grëëcë this yër? See the løveli lakes . . . The wøndërful telephøne system . . . And mäni interesting furry spiders
  
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  Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
2. Re: Siderman, we built you a new home by Anonymous Coward · 2018-09-21 06:59 · Score: 0
  
  Interesting, but why is this on Slashdot?
3. Re: Siderman, we built you a new home by pgmrdlm · 2018-09-21 08:41 · Score: 1
  
  Are spider webs strong? They found that some spider webs can withstand hurricane-force winds! Although silk is very strong, that's not the only important factor in a web's strength. Spider webs have a very complex design. The way the web is built means that if a single strand of web breaks, the strength of the web actually increases.
  Just the science of how spiderwebs are built, and the size of the web mentioned in the article makes this a slashdot story. Many scientists study these webs for understanding so that they can apply the science to current type of products. Just saying. Fun article, but lots of science behind it.
  
  --
  Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
4. Re:Siderman, we built you a new home by Anonymous Coward · 2018-09-21 08:53 · Score: 0
  
  ...And the majestic spider you mean
Futurama Quote by mykepredko · 2018-09-21 04:53 · Score: 3, Funny

Reading in TFA how the spiders die after the "party" was finished made me think of the Futurama episode "Why must I be a crustacean in love?" in which Zoidberg loses his chance for mating.
Fry: So you have to choose between life without sex and a hideous, gruesome death?
Dr. Zoidberg: Yes.
Fry: Tough call.

--
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
1. Re:Futurama Quote by Ogive17 · 2018-09-21 05:14 · Score: 2
  
  Last week I found a headless preying mantis on my front porch. At least we know what choice he made.
  
  --
  "Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
2. Re:Futurama Quote by olsmeister · 2018-09-21 05:19 · Score: 1
  
  The same one we all do.
3. Re:Futurama Quote by Darinbob · 2018-09-21 05:26 · Score: 1
  
  Fry: "I never thought I would die this way, but I kinda always hoped. "
4. Re:Futurama Quote by Woeful+Countenance · 2018-09-21 05:27 · Score: 1
  
  Fry: So you have to choose between life without sex and a hideous, gruesome death? Dr. Zoidberg: Yes. Fry: Tough call.
  Good news, everyone! You can have both!
5. Re:Futurama Quote by Anonymous Coward · 2018-09-21 05:53 · Score: 0
  
  At least you didn't link some lame xkcd crap.
6. Re:Futurama Quote by syn3rg · 2018-09-21 08:27 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry dude -- I tried to mod this funny, but my browser changed it to Overrated. I wish I could have that point back.... (not commenting Anon, so it removes that mod)
  
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  The contents of this message have been doubly encrypted by ROT13
7. Re:Futurama Quote by Anonymous Coward · 2018-09-21 16:59 · Score: 0
  
  I gave him a funny mod in your place.
Nope... by bosef1 · 2018-09-21 04:54 · Score: 2

Nope, uh-uh, no way, no, burn it with fire...
1. Re:Nope... by E-Rock · 2018-09-21 05:13 · Score: 2
  
  They're eating mosquitoes. That's got to be points in their favor.
2. Re:Nope... by Seven+Spirals · 2018-09-21 05:15 · Score: 2
  
  I started down the "burn them with fire" road, until I read that part about the mosquitoes. I hate them worse. Yeah, okay then, have your party little spiders. The enemy of my enemy is my friend (for now... kinda).
3. Re:Nope... by olsmeister · 2018-09-21 05:21 · Score: 1
  
  I suppose the next population boom will be these. I have these in my house sometimes. They kill the spiders, but man are they ugly bastards.
4. Re:Nope... by tlhIngan · 2018-09-21 06:15 · Score: 2
  
  I started down the "burn them with fire" road, until I read that part about the mosquitoes. I hate them worse. Yeah, okay then, have your party little spiders. The enemy of my enemy is my friend (for now... kinda).
  I prefer the spiders, they keep the insect population at bay.
  Once a wasp decided to create a nest outside the door to our secondary suite. It didn't last long - the nest stayed tiny, but the next year, the number of spider webs (all inhabited by spiders big and small) were plentiful. Never encountered any wasps, either.
  Ugly scary looking things, but hey, they eat the little critters that serve to annoy me, so they're doing a good job there. I don't recall getting bit by mosquitoes or harassed by fruit flies, either, so the spiders can stay. And they do it for free, and are environmentally friendlier than bug spray.
5. Re:Nope... by RailRide · 2018-09-21 06:42 · Score: 1
  
  Oh, the house centipede? Creepy-looking and they move with disturbing speed when spooked. But if they don't find anything to eat, they generally move on
  Spiders on the other hand, don't move on, and I have an issue with them erecting webs in my living space
  .(protip, a green laser pointer is particularly useful in lighting up otherwise invisible webs lurking in odd corners where one might stick their hands without looking)
  The nearest parallel I've seen to the condition in TFA is the huge nasty-looking "bags of tree cancer" made by the Fall Webworm that infest some trees in the Southeast US (usually where I see them, but have noticed infestations as far north as the Baltimore area). During a particularly bad year in South Carolina long ago, large trees sometimes were festooned with dozens of these nests, and some saplings were so covered with webbing that they looked like a giant pantyhose was draped over them. Gross.
  ---PCJ
6. Re:Nope... by commodore64_love · 2018-09-21 07:19 · Score: 2
  
  When I find a spiderweb in my home I leave it there. The spider is harmless, but the other insects it catches are deadly or disease-ridden. I figure the spider is like the beneficial bacteria in my intestine... contributing to my well-being.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
7. Re: Nope... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-09-21 07:32 · Score: 0
  
  They actually made their way all the way up to southern PA where I live. I've seen them as far north as york PA.
8. Re:Nope... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-09-21 07:40 · Score: 0
  
  As long as the spiders don't get near me, they can stay. They can live in my garage, in dark corners of my house I never touch, outside my door where I don't walk, it's all good. Once they go beyond that, they have to go.
Now it begins! by DrTJ · 2018-09-21 04:56 · Score: 4, Funny

It will be our undoing. This is the first sign of a world wide web!
1. Re:Now it begins! by CrimsonAvenger · 2018-09-21 05:51 · Score: 1
  
  It will be our undoing. This is the first sign of a world wide web!
  Bad joke! Bad! No cookie for you!
  
  --
  
  "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
2. Re:Now it begins! by Anonymous Coward · 2018-09-21 09:43 · Score: 0
  
  I was assured that the internet was a series of tubes. Now it's the world wide web and a collection of threads?
  What is this, a network for ants??
I for one.... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-09-21 04:57 · Score: 0

Well you know the rest.
Kinda familiar by bobdehnhardt · 2018-09-21 05:01 · Score: 2

The spiders will have their party and will soon die.
Just like college...
Children of Time by Allasard · 2018-09-21 05:03 · Score: 2

Reminds me of this great sci-fi book I just read. If you ever wanted to know what spiders might think about the world.
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
1. Re:Children of Time by commodore64_love · 2018-09-21 07:24 · Score: 2
  
  > 1 New Hardcover from $1,060.11
  WOW. For that price this "book" better be a 100-volume encyclopedia. I'm trying to imagine anyone who would pay that much for a scifi novel.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
2. Re:Children of Time by GrumpySteen · 2018-09-21 07:36 · Score: 1
  
  It's either a pricing bot glitch or it's someone who is laundering money through Amazon.
Who knew? by Falconnan · 2018-09-21 05:05 · Score: 1

So what we're saying is, this is the arachnid version of, "Eat, drink, and be merry!"
This does not make me like them more.
1. Re:Who knew? by olsmeister · 2018-09-21 05:23 · Score: 1
  
  Wait, aren't the mosquitoes eating the plastic? Then the spiders eat the mosquitoes? So really the spiders are eating the plastic and these webs may never biodegrade. This is a catastrophe.
Guess what all animals say about *humans*! by Anonymous Coward · 2018-09-21 05:23 · Score: 0

Some group of tiny spiders starts a party, and we panic.
What are the spiders supposed to think? To them we must look like gigantic mountain-sized Rubber Johnnys (don't click until you watch horror movies for breakfast!) causing necrotic landscapes wherever they spread!
WE are the explosive planetary pathogen. Where we go, only death will left.
I stopped siding with humans. (Not only homo psychopathis and homo fucus lethargicus that are currently emerging, but homo sapiens as well. ;)
Rubber Johnny link ... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-09-21 05:45 · Score: 0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRvfxWRi6qQ
Not linked, to keep those safe, who do not think before they clicked. :)
But to the giant spider by Anonymous Coward · 2018-09-21 05:57 · Score: 0

It's just enough for a couple of mosquitoes
Spiders are your friend by Alwin+Henseler · 2018-09-21 05:58 · Score: 1

That's the reason I regard spiders as 'friendly room mates': they rarely bother me, while I hate a lot of what's on their menu. Not to mention there are no (or extremely few) poisonous spiders where I live. Never understood people's fear of them other than the surprise of one dropping into your field of vision unexpected. YMMV if you live in (mostly tropical) areas where poisonous creatures crawl into your shoes or lurk under toilet seats etc.
So I never hit spiders with a fly squatter, move them out of the house, or flush one down a sink. Sure I'll remove some webs if they make things look dirty / messy, or I'll poke one to move the other way if it decides to drop in front of my screen. But otherwise they're free to move. And no, there aren't many spiders in my room - I regularly kill the same annoying insects they do, so the spiders must survive on whatever escapes me. Which isn't much. :-)
1. Re:Spiders are your friend by Anonymous Coward · 2018-09-21 07:33 · Score: 0
  
  That's the reason I regard spiders as 'friendly room mates': they rarely bother me, while I hate a lot of what's on their menu.
  Except for those Yellow Sac Spiders, to hell with those things! Had a bunch of them in the house the first spring after we moved in (there must have been an egg sack laid somewhere in the fall when the house was vacant for a bit) and I was killing 2-3 a day for nearly a month. They are nearly blind and do annoying things like drop down from the ceiling on a thread right in front of your face, climb right onto your keyboard while you're typing and such and they bite with almost no provocation. I have zero tolerance for that species in my home, unlike the Cellar Spiders and Jumping Spiders that keep their distance from humans or the harmless Harvestmen that never come into the house.
WTF? by nospam007 · 2018-09-21 06:04 · Score: 0

News for people with arachnophobia, stuff that matters for Greeks, not Geeks.
Giant Spiderweb Cloaks Land by weilawei · 2018-09-21 06:11 · Score: 2

I've never seen a whole cloak made out of spiderweb! Much less a flying one.
Neato.
1. Re:Giant Spiderweb Cloaks Land by Anonymous Coward · 2018-09-21 07:18 · Score: 0
  
  check this one out, then:
  Spiderweb Shawl and Cape
Bad picture by tsa · 2018-09-21 18:04 · Score: 1

The picture that comes with the article really is the worst nature pic I have ever seen. I have no idea what is on there. There is nothing redognizable apart from the water so there is nothing there to give you an indication of scale. The lighting is wrong. Composition is non-existing. Really, the article improves by not adding the picture.

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