Scientists at Texas A&M University (TAMU) detailed a giant "communal" spider web recently spotted in Dallas.
Mike Merchant, an urban entomologist at the TAMU AgriLife Extension Service, said in a blog post the webs stretch for about the length of a football field along CA Roan Drive in Dallas.
"Someone stepping off the road for a closer look will see thousands of lanky spiders darting among the webs that extend up to 40 feet into the trees," he told the TAMU AgriLife website. "There is a surreal quality to the extensive webbing covering these trees."
He also recalled a similar case in 2007 when a giant web appeared at Lake Tawakoni State Park. Arachnologists, those who study spiders, jump at the chance to study these rare webs, "because spiders typically work alone to construct their webs," Merchant told TAMU AgriLife.
He also said the spiders that live in the giant webs are not known to cause any trouble with people or even with their fellow spiders, so one should feel entirely comfortable admiring their work at close range.
"Arachnologists had previously noted that this species is known to build communal nests when conditions are right," Merchant said. "But it is rare to see them building such large nests in the U.S. Spider experts have indicated that those 'right conditions' appear to include a glut of small insects like midges that emerge at night from lakes. Without lots of food, these communal webs just don't seem to form.
"These types of spiders are unusual in that they are not aggressive to other spiders of the same species on the same web."
