Lake Tawakoni State Park Giant Spider Web
45 miles east of Dallas, Texas, spiders have spun a web that stretches along 200-yards of a nature trail in the Lawakoni State Park. Seven trees and numerous bushes are blanketed by the web, which also spills across the ground.
"At first, it was so white it looked like fairyland," said park Superintendent Donna Garde. "Now it's filled with so many mosquitoes that it's turned a little brown. There are times you can literally hear the screech of millions of mosquitoes caught in those webs."
Serves them right, the dirty blood-sucking bastards. Music to our ears, this lovely mosquito genocide.
In spite of the joy of hearing the shrieks of millions of dying mosquitoes, the thought of arachnids falling from the sky is a little much for some. Visitors to the Lake Tawakoni State Park either love it or hate it. Stalwarts from the media, however, were not to be deterred. Park officials have had to post guards along the trail to protect the giant spider web against the curious poking and prodding of grubby little fingers, and the flow of spectators is expected to increase over the weekend.
What caused these friendly little web-crawlers to create such a massive structure? Was it a group project by social spiders, working together in harmony, or was it solitary spiders spinning separate webs in an attempt to move away from one another? Perhaps it was the crack spider up to his usual tricks? Or, as Al Gore would have you believe, is this just another sign of the impeding doom that is global warming?
Although heated debate amongst entomology experts has taken place over the internet, the root cause of this phenomenon is still undecided. Superintendent Donna Garde wants the experts to investigate the web in person. A valid point, since the only scientific fact determined thus far has been that arguing over the internet is like the Special Olympics; even if you win, you're still retarded.
Herbert Pase, a Texas Forest Service entomologist, said, "From what I'm hearing, it could be a once in a lifetime event."
However, don't expect Lake Tawakoni State Park's giant spider web to stick around long enough to become the eighth wonder of the world. In fact, it probably won't last longer than late October, when the spiders complete their part in the circle of life, curl up their legs, and die, thus ending their tragically short existence.
Isn't nature a beautiful thing?
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10 comments:
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It'd be nice if someone would describe the spiders or identify the species. This reminds me of the Anelosimus eximius species.
"The most social of the social spiders live in multigenerational colonies in the rain forests of South America. Anelosimus eximius, one of the best studied of these cooperative species, builds a hammock-shaped web suspended from the lush vegetation by long threads. Their mahogany bodies are about the size of pencil erasers. They band together in colonies of hundreds to tens of thousands of individuals, spinning their collective web above rivers and roads and where light filters in through the tree canopy.
Several generations of spiders live together in the community, and with constant repairs, the meter-long nest can last several years. Adult spiders care for the young, but they don't distinguish between their own progeny and those of others. They guard eggs against predators, move egg sacks to the web areas with the most comfortable temperatures, and feed hatchlings.
When a colony grows too large, the nest starts to break up of its own weight, Smith says. The spiders split into two or three groups, or the young adult females crawl away on bridges of silk to spawn their own colonies."
Excerpt taken from:
Spider Solidarity Forever
By Laura Helmuth
Maybe they all got great deals on their home mortgages from predatory lenders, and bought into a huge condo complex. Yes-I'm sure that's what happened.
If you do a search for "anelosimus eximius" on Google Image Search, you can find some pretty cool pictures of the little buggers.
I suspect that this is just another Texas Halloween gimmick. You know how those Texans are always bragging ab't "big".
These are called ordweaver or ord weaver spiders for anyone curious about the species. No one has observed collective behavior in this species before now.
love, spyderwomyn
Well spyderwomyn, we don't know for sure if this is collective behavior being exhibited by orb weavers since no one has yet to go and study this thing and no one has even proposed any pictures of the species of spiders responsible for these webs.
Buttercup
It's a combination of banana spiders and bag worms. We've had flooding here, and I live on Lake Tawakoni.
This is all over around here, in varying degrees. It's not a weird phenomenon or anything freakishly retarded.
Flooding + huge black, brown, white and red spiders = this gigantic web. It seems strange, but makes perfect sense considering the circumstances.
P.S.
Watch the video on cnn.com of the web. It's FULL of banana spiders.
You know, for those who happen to be curious about the species I can offer a helping hand in that area. lol It just so happens I got the newspaper (Dallas Morning News wasn't it?) with this issue in it. And it listed the species...or at least the different kinds of spiders that were found.
Funnel web weavers
Sac spiders
Orb weavers
Ant-mimic spiders
Jumping spiders
Long-jawed orb weavers
Cobweb weavers
Crab spiders
Hope this helps!
had almost same size web FULL of hundreds of what i was told were orb spiders...They had connected webs. I was "told' to trap birds..Definitely obvious they were working /living together harmoniously. Wish I had taken pictures ...Could only see really good near dusk when sun was behind. The giant web went from 100=yr old live oak tree to my neighbors behind me..their magnolia. It was unreal to see. Had a cookout July 4th. Right where we always cookout..Everyone was in awe at the sight...These spiders have long legs but are overall massive in size...narrow but at least 6 inches from tip of top of leg to bottom of bottom leg
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