Spiders are only escaping floods

Spider webs at the end of Carrs Creek Rd.

Tim Howard

AFTER a slow start the web became the spiders' best friend.

Last week Daily Examiner readers were intrigued by the phenomenon of millions of spiders weaving webs that covered fields along Carrs Creek Rd.

Waving in the wind like sails, these curtains of white were a sight to see and provoked an awe of nature in the beholder.

But trying to Google the event did not turn up too much information.

We should have gone back through our own files, when a year ago almost to the day Col and Josy Billings described a similar incident at Tucabia Cemetery where spiders had shrouded the gravestones in their webs.

Our thanks to Josy for reminding us that the spiders use this technique to escape floodwater.

"With all the rains we've had recently a lot of spiders have been flooded out and/or the spiders were washed down the creeks along with the floodwaters," DEX reporter Graham Orams reported after contacting the Australian Museum.

"Those that do not drown let out streamers of silk to catch the breeze so they might get blown onto obstructions like overhanging branches or shrubs emerging from the water.

"As these get covered in webs they become even more attractive as refuges from the waters.

"The result you get is this attractive phenomenon of web-covered bushes and trees.

"Overseas this is sometimes referred to as 'Angel's Hair', but is more usually caused by thous- ands of baby spiders dispersing from their hatching sites in the same way by releasing a streamer of silk and letting the breeze carry them to a new destination. This process of dispersal is known as ballooning."

Another reader, Jeff Ashenden, did some research.

"After reading your story about the spider webs covering the paddocks at the end of Carrs Creek Rd and doing some research, I believe they are a species of the Tent or Dome spiders from the Family Araneidae. They could be Cryrtophora moluccensis, but I would need to see one to be sure.

"Hope this may be of some assistance."

Readers on the Daily Examiner website also presented plenty of interesting feedback.

But we have to report Aussie spiders appear to be slackers when it comes to web-building feats.

A reader sent in a selection of photos published on the National Geographic website of spiders in Pakistan who built such extensive webs in trees they reduced the mosquito population in that area.