Horde of Texas spiders won’t let giant web die
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/09/2007 (6570 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
FORT WORTH, Texas — Spiders worked together to make the massive Lake Tawakoni, Texas web, researchers say.
Three times they’ve built it. Three times wind and rain have torn it down.
But Tuesday afternoon, thousands of spiders were back at it again, working to rebuild a massive spider web at Lake Tawakoni State Park that at one time stretched about 60 metres, covering bushes and trees to create a creepy canopy.
Researchers say they now believe thousands of spiders from different species worked together to make one large, all-encompassing web instead of the traditional individual webs that normally would be woven.
Together, they’ve built and rebuilt a web that has caught potentially tens of thousands of flies and bugs as well as the attention of people nationwide.
“These spiders seem to be working together to build it back,” said Zach Lewis, an office clerk at the Lake Tawakoni park. “It’s really something to see.”
Ever since the web was first spotted this summer at the state park about 80 kilometres east of Dallas, tourists and park workers alike have been amazed by its magnitude.
Researchers say it likely took one-and-a-half to two months to weave such a large web. They took samples of the spiders in late August, and Allen Dean, an entomologist at Texas A&M University in College Station, helped identify them. He found 12 spider families.
— McClatchy Newspapers