PHOTOS: 107 million spiders spin 1.6 hectare web in Maryland
Digital Reporter
Wednesday, November 5, 2014, 1:15 PM - In 2009 crews came across a 1.6 hectare (4 acre) web at the Baltimore Wastewater Treatment Plant in Maryland created by an estimated 107 million spiders.
The photos, which were originally published by the Entomological Society of America, have gained a renewed popularity after they were featured on Wired last week.
Scientists believe the spiders were attracted to flies that were frequenting the unused plant.
"We were unprepared for the sheer scale of the spider population and the extraordinary masses of both three dimensional and sheet-like webbing that blanketed much of the facility’s cavernous interior," a research team recalls in a paper, adding that the "visual impact" of the massive web was "nothing less than astonishing."
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"In places where the plant workers had swept aside the webbing to access equipment, the silk lay piled on the floor in rope-like clumps as thick as a fire hose," they write.
The Entomological Society snapped the pictures and posted them online before the webs were taken down.
Photos courtesy of the Entomological Society of America
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