Posted on 03/07/2012 5:27:55 PM PST by Clintonfatigued
Thousands of normally solitary wolf spiders have blanketed an Australian farm after fleeing a rising flood.
Reuters reports that the flooding has forced more than 8,000 Australian (human) residents from their homes in the city of Wagga Wagga in New South Wales. But for every temporarily displaced person, it appears several spiders have moved in to fill the void.
"What we've seen here is a type of wolf spider," Owen Seeman, an arachnid expert at Queensland Museum, told Reuters. "They are trying to hide away (from the waters)."
The Australian Museum's entomology collections manager Graham Milledge told Reuters that there's even a term for the phenomenon, "ballooning," and that it is typical behavior for spiders forced to escape rising waters.
You can watch a video here of researchers on the hunt for ballooning spiders from the safety of a hot air balloon.
A dog casually walks through the ballooning spider webs (Daniel Munoz/Reuters)Thankfully for local residents, the occupying arachnids are not likely to set up permanent residence, a la the 1977 William Shatner clunker "Kingdom of the Spiders." Weather reports say the flood waters in Wagga Wagga have begun receding, meaning that locals will soon be returning to their homes and the wolf spiders will also be returning to their natural underground habitats.
And it turns out the spiders are actually doing quite a bit of good while setting up shop above ground. The spiders are feasting on mosquitoes and other insect populations that have boomed with the increased moisture brought about by the rising waters.
"The amount of mosquitoes around would be incredible because of all this water," Taronga Zoo spider keeper Brett Finlayson told the Sydney Morning Herald. "The spiders don't pose any harm at all. They are doing us a favor. They are actually helping us out."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Kill it with fire...
I often freak people out by picking up Wolf Spiders.
I don’t like killing them, because as the article says, they are our friends.
I always save a spider’s life too. Scoop them in a cup and put them outside. I don’t know if all of them are friendly though. Not really sure if we have any super deadly types in CO. Anyway, we’ve never had any problems with any of them.
I have stood at the flood edge on a roadway at night and seen the guardrail absolutely swarming with spiders and centipedes and insects and pillbugs, all glistening in the headlights, and bet on the spiders to be the last ones standing - imagine having to pull yourself to safety along that guardrail.
But to see the trees cocooned with webbing like that - that farm must be surrounded with standing water. Creepy, creepy, creepy.
I live in the Boulder area and hike the Greenbelt Plateau and Flatirons Vista open space.
Wolf spiders were everywhere along the trail. I never knew that wolf spiders could get that big. One was four inches across. He was an aggressive little guy. He chased my walking stick when I put it in front of him.
I didn’t see any webs. They hide in holes and ambush. Pretty certain that they were wolf spiders.
I have lived in Colorado all of my life and didn’t know this.
They are. Even black widows serve a purpose. However, their bite can make someone really sick so I kill them. Sad, but better than one of my family members getting bit.
"What appears to be snow is actually spider webs blanketing an Australian farm. (Daniel Munoz/Reuters)"
"Hellllp meeee! Helllllp meeeee!"
We have Brown Recluse and Hobo spiders in CO which can cause a terrible wound and make you sick for weeks but I have never seen one to my knowledge. I scoop them up and toss them outside alive also.
I hate that farm! lol
Holy crap....Nuke it from orbit, already.
“Just the small life, Master. Hee Hee Heeeeeee”
—Renfield
” The Fly “ ?
Wolfs, and Tarantulas, are GOOD spiders. They are our friends. I’d never harm a hair on their bodies. I know from experience: You keep a couple of these on your porch, and you’ll never see a cricket or roach.
They scare the snot out of uninformed people, though.
I have a friend who lost a patch of skin about the size of a hand to a brown recluse bite.
Another friend got bit twice living in a loft apartment at a warehouse.
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