Visiting Chicago? Beware of flying spiders
Digital Reporter
Wednesday, May 13, 2015, 4:30 PM - Chicago hotels are advising visitors to keep their windows closed and to be on the lookout for flying spiders.
Every spring, baby bridge spiders hatch and send out small silk structures that help them ride air currents and climb high into the atmosphere.
In the wild, this helps arachnids land in tall trees and cliffs but in Chicago, thousands of spiders are climbing as much as 90 stories high onto the city's skyscrapers.
While that's enough to have some people avoiding windows all together, experts are quick to point out that spiders play a vital role in the ecosystem.
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"Spiders are a wonderful part of our neighbourhood ecology. If we didn't have spiders, we'd be neck-deep in flies by summer," Notebaert Nature Museum curator Steve Sullivan told The Weather Channel.
Baby bridge spiders are most active during the spring and early summer.
By the time fall rolls around, they'll be long gone.
