Deep underground in a dark, sulfuric cave on the border between Albania and Greece, scientists have made an incredible discovery – a giant communal spider web spanning more than 100 square meters (1,000 sq ft), dense enough to resemble a living curtain, home to an estimated 110,000 spiders. In…
    • FatVegan@leminal.spaceEnglish
      26·
      5 months ago

      My bedroom has super high ceilings, and one night, there was a fly in there. Not just a fly, it was the fattest fly i have ever seen. It was so loud that i couldn’t sleep. She also decided to land on my face every other minute. Because of the high ceilings, i didn’t even see a point to try to catch it, that thing absolutely terrorised me. Suddenly i heard how she flapped her wings erratically so i jumped up and investigated.

      The smallest spider in my whole house just made the catch of her lifetime.i pointed at it and laughed like an insane super villain. I love my little spider friends.

    • ekZepp@lemmy.worldEnglish
      19·
      5 months ago

      Yep. They’ve earned all my love just for this small beautiful fact. 🕸💕

      OIP-1246609667.FjE2aqtcDQHTq1Z5ocnQsgHaEK

    • webp@mander.xyzEnglish
      6·
      5 months ago

      Yes. To the people cowering away from this cave, at least there are probably no mosquitoes.

    • Evil_ShrubberyEnglish
      3·
      5 months ago

      Yes!

      Half of these at least.
      The rest are prob a bit tiny.

  • fubarx@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    5 months ago

    According to the article, the air smells like rotten eggs, there are sulphur-converting bacteria in the air, tiny little midges everywhere, and that dude just stands there with no protection other than an overall and a helmet.

    Oh yeah, and a crap-ton of spiders.

    • ButteryMonkey@piefed.socialEnglish
      10·
      5 months ago

      Sounds like the conditions that allow for this are pretty specific, and while you could harvest this, it would likely decimate the population.

      Could it be artificially recreated? Probably, but at that point it’s looped back around to being non-viable.

      • dukeofdummies@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        5 months ago

        Yeah, the conditions are specific, but that’s also true for Wasabi and truffles. The big problem with spiders has always been their canabalistic and solitary natures. Truffles and Wasabi don’t kill eachother.

        Also just because the biome is specific, doesn’t mean it’s necessary. Biggest issues are probably their immune system. Such isolated things are usually easily hit by fungus or bacteria.

  • Evil_ShrubberyEnglish
    6·
    5 months ago

    Amazing!

    This finding is the first documented case of colonial behavior between two solitary species of spider

    And one species (Prinerigone vagans) is 2-3mm, the other (Tegenaria domestica) 7.5-11.5mm in body length.

    Like a bunch of introverted humans and cats prob.