Spiders Rain Down on Australian Town

SeaBreeze

SeaBreeze

Endlessly Groovin'
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It's raining spiders in Australia. http://www.amusingplanet.com/2015/05/spiders-rain-down-on-australian-town.html


While raining cats and dogs is only a metaphor, raining spiders is a reality in Australia. The latest arachnid shower took place last week in a town called Goulburn, in New South Wales, approximately 195 km south-west of Sydney, where millions of tiny spiders rained down from the sky and blanketed the countryside with their webs.

Unlike the rare frog rains and fish rains, that’s not entirely understood, arachnid showers is a well documented phenomenon called “ballooning” which is used by spiders and some other invertebrates to migrate from one pace to another.

During a “ballooning” event, the spiders will climb up as high as they can, stand on raised legs with its abdomen pointed upwards and release several silk threads into the air. These strands form triangular shaped parachutes that allow them to be carried away by the wind hundreds of miles to a new territory. In windless conditions, the Earth's static electric field may also provide lift.
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Webs on the grass...

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SeaBreeze, those photos are not of this latest event. That is what happened some time ago during relentless rains. As the paddocks began to go under water the spiders that were part of that environment climbed up out of the water and festooned the long grass and bushes with their webs.

It just goes to show how many spiders are always present as part of the natural food web. If they were not there, the insects would eat everything we tried to grow.

Have you seen Charlotte's web? In this story the baby spiders spin a line of web and are picked up by the wind and dispersed. For this to happen they have to be very small. The phenomenon of spiders raining down sounds a lot worse than it probably was. Raining ants would be much more uncomfortable.
 
Since childhood, I have an absolute horror of spiders. Despite numerous lectures on the beneficial aspects of spiders, I can't get past it. I don't know what I'd do if something like that happened here -- they'd probably have to cart me off to a rubber room or something.
 
We saw huge colonies of spiders on Norfolk Island. Normally spiders are solitary because they eat each other. This is why the spiderlings must disperse soon after hatching. However, on Norfolk for some reason they built complex webs where each spider had its own space. They were strung between trees and I made a mental note not to go strolling in the park after dark.

Apparently the locals call them tent spiders

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Butterfly said:
Since childhood, I have an absolute horror of spiders. Despite numerous lectures on the beneficial aspects of spiders, I can't get past it. I don't know what I'd do if something like that happened here -- they'd probably have to cart me off to a rubber room or something.
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I'm not a big fan of arachnids either. Waking up to a world like that would be pretty scary. :disturbed:
 
Thanks Warrigal, I thought those were current photos. We have a lot of spiders where I live, but nothing like that! :eek:
 
That many spiders means they are getting plenty to eat. Although what I find surprising is thehorizontal/ tent effect webs the spiders are spinning. I notice many spiders like to place a web in a drafty area in the vertical hoping to catch a fly by-literally.
 
DM interesting pics of the spiders tents.I always think anyone is super brave to live in Australia, where there are so many deadly things.:eek:
 

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