In Memphis, spiders cover ground with blanket of silk. How is this possible?
It鈥檚 an alarming sight for arachnophobes, but the half-mile-long spider web harboring thousands, maybe millions, of spiders in Memphis is 鈥� believe it or not 鈥� harmless.
"It's a mass dispersal of the millions of tiny spiders that have always been in that field, unnoticed until now,鈥� Residents in the northern Memphis neighborhood that鈥檚 home to the gigantic web have been trying to kill the tiny arachnids one by one.
"You can't even sit in [a neighbor's] house because on the door,鈥� complained resident Debra Lewis to WMC News. 鈥淲e been killing spiders for about an hour now," she said.
But there鈥檚 nothing to fear, as the small creatures, probably sheetweb spiders, said Dr. Reichling, don鈥檛 bite. What鈥檚 causing the blanket of silk web covering parts of a field in a residential neighborhood is a migration event called 鈥渂allooning.鈥� What happens during ballooning is that spiders disperse by shooting out threads of silk. These threads catch wind currents that transport these members of the Linyphiidae family forward several feet at a time.
Thousands of these spiders have probably been living in the field near where the blanket of white has been formed in Memphis.
鈥淭his would explain the fact that thousands to hundreds of thousands ,鈥� explained 聽Susan Riechart, a professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and former president of the American Arachnological Society, to The Washington Post.
鈥淐aught by the air currents, the spiderlings have no control over where they will land, but it is not surprising that they may fall in the same area," said Dr. Riechart. 聽
Such ballooning events are not unique to Memphis. They can happen all over the Northern Hemisphere 鈥� and have been spotted in Britain and Australia 鈥� but scientists don鈥檛 really know why and when.
But they do say the spiders . Ballooning is simply, 鈥渁 spectacular natural history occurrence," explained Robb Bennett, a spider expert at Canada鈥檚 Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, to National Geographic.
In 2012, for example, record rains and flooding in News South Wales, Australia, caused millions of wolf spiders to shoot their silky way to safety up trees and bushes, .
Though events like this are understandably unnerving to people, they鈥檙e an indication of a healthy ecosystem. Memphis residents might feel consoled to know that these spiders feed on many agricultural pests, which is beneficial for farmers.
鈥淚 would not want to live in a world where such things were no longer possible,鈥� Reichling from the Memphis Zoo said. 鈥淭he presence of these spiders tells us that all is well with nature at that location."
