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It’s the real world wide web.
Romanian scientists realized every arachnophobe’s worst nightmare after discovering the “world’s biggest spider web”– complete with approximately 111,000 of the critters. The impressive feat of arachnid architecture was detailed in a spine-tingling study in the journal Subterranean Biology.
Situated on the border between Greece and Albania, the subterranean structure stretched for a staggering 1,140 square feet along the wall of a narrow, low-ceilinged passage in a permanently dark zone near the mouth of the sulfuric cavern, LiveScience reported.
The colossal colony comprised thousands of individual funnel webs like a silky tent city and likely represented the largest spider web in the world, per the web-browsing authors.
“You have to experience it to truly know what it feels like,” said head author István Urák, an associate professor of biology at Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania in Romania. “If I were to attempt to put into words all the emotions that surged through me [when I saw the web], I would highlight admiration, respect and gratitude.”
Residing inside this arachnid metropolis were two species of arachnids: the barn funnel weaver or domestic house spider, and another called a sheet or dwarf weaver.
Their cohabitation was unique as these solitary species weren’t previously known to coexist in this fashion.
Urák dubbed the unique living arrangement “a unique case of two species cohabiting within the same web structure in these huge numbers.”
Scientists were perplexed by how the colony managed to sustain itself in a sulfur cave — an inhospitable environment known for its lack of sunlight and high levels of toxic hydrogen-sulfur gas, Phys.org reported.
Using a food web-mapping method called stable isotope analysis, the researchers discovered that the underground spider settlement consumed tiny midges that fed on sulfur-eating microbes that thrived in the cave environment.
As the insects were easily ensnared by the arachnid’s silk abode, they provided a constant and sustainable food source.
Scientists also discovered that the communal fly-catchers were genetically distinct from their counterparts living just outside the cave walls, which they attributed to their food source and their increased isolation from the outside world.
Urák, said the discovery illustrated how the “natural world still holds countless surprises.”
“Often, we think we know a species completely, that we understand everything about it, yet unexpected discoveries can still occur,” he declared.
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