After the flood, out come the spiders
Spiders on the move set up camp beside the road near Sale.
Photo: Joe Armao
IT'S every arachnophobe's worst nightmare: millions of spiders on the move, blanketing everything in cobwebs.
The Gippsland flooding has triggered a spider population explosion of up to 30 species, which have taken to the air in the search for new homes.
Australia's leading "spider man", the senior curator of spiders at Queensland Museum, Robert Raven, said the phenomenon was triggered by recent heavy rain, after the drought had postponed hatchings.
Arachnids from up to five families, including money spiders, wolf spiders, water spiders, crab spiders and orb-weaving spiders are in a spin, producing silk, which catches the breeze and lifts them into the air. "They are remarkable animals and they can get up into the stratosphere higher than planes," Dr Raven said.
But when the air gets heavy, the web drops and they fall to the ground, covering everything in sight.
After Age photographer Joe Armao stopped to photograph the shimmering gossamer of webs at Seaspray, near Sale, last week, he returned to find his car draped in webs, along with hundreds of culprits. Said Dr Raven: "The thing is, if they all stayed at the same spot, there would be no food and they would eat each other.
"After floods you'll also get things like scorpions and centipedes that will float on the water and then get into houses because they are high and dry."
One Licola resident returned home to find that six snakes had taken up residence inside.
No comments:
Post a Comment