Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you.
Posted on 11/06/2025 9:10:09 AM PST by fidelis
A giant colonial spiderweb in a sulfuric cave on the border between Greece and Albania may be the largest ever found — and it was built by spiders we didn't know liked the company of others.
Researchers have discovered more than 111,000 spiders thriving in what appears to be the world's biggest spiderweb, deep inside a pitch-black cave on the Albanian-Greek border.
The "extraordinary" colony consists of a colossal web in a permanently dark zone of the cavern, according to a study published Oct. 17 in the journal Subterranean Biology. The web stretches 1,140 square feet (106 square meters) along the wall of a narrow, low-ceilinged passage near the entrance of the cave. It is a patchwork of thousands of individual, funnel-shaped webs, the researchers noted.
This is the first evidence of colonial behavior in two common spider species and likely represents the largest spiderweb in the world, said study lead author István Urák, an associate professor of biology at Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania in Romania.
The spider megacity is located in Sulfur Cave, a cavern that was hollowed out by sulfuric acid formed from the oxidation of hydrogen sulfide in groundwater. While the researchers revealed tantalizing new information about Sulfur Cave's spider colony, they weren't the first to see the giant web. Cavers with the Czech Speleological Society discovered it in 2022 during an expedition in the Vromoner Canyon. A team of scientists then visited the cave in 2024, plucking specimens from the web that Urák analyzed before going on his own expedition to Sulfur Cave.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
|
|
Click here: to donate by Credit Card Or here: to donate by PayPal Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794 Thank you very much and God bless you. |
I've run into electrical rooms during fire inspections that were almost as bad. Those were mostly Black Widows, though.
If I click on this I will have nightmares.
Nope! Nope Nope Nope!
They must be surviving by eating their babies... How sick is that?
55,000 potential mates in pitch blackness. Kinda a reminds me of my days in bars long ago.
Nope. Not me. 😬
“A giant colonial spiderweb” ping.
Frodo, suspended in the web, is at a loss until he hears the voice of Gollum, who is watching, gloating, nearby.
Gollum: (In a sing-song voice) Naughty little fly, why does it cry? Caught in a web, soon you’ll be dead!
🎶I don’t like spiders or snakes
Shelob’s children?
Who was the poor schlemiel whose job it was to COUNT them (over 110,000!)
Looks like some of the cobweb spiders around here if I don’t clean them out pretty regularly.
I have to imagine that the only way a colony of 110,000 spiders survives in such close proximity is to cannibalize each other.
Note to self #2: If you insist on exploring the Sulfur Cave, bring a flamethrower.
Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
> Who was the poor schlemiel whose job it was to COUNT them (over 110,000!) <
Comedian Nate Bargatze has a routine about that. He says that most scientific pronouncements go unchallenged. So scientists can make up any number they want.
There were so many, but no one could find Charlotte...
I Believe it.
I mean...Who’s gonna do a RECOUNT?
Not Me, I’ll tell you that. 🕷🕸🕷🕸🕷 Eyew!
What is their food source????
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.