Spiderwebs coat Australian countryside

Rain and flooding in the eastern Australian city of Wagga Wagga have driven sheet-web and wolf spiders to higher ground. But there is no accessible higher ground, so the spiders have had to create it themselves by spinning massive webs that sheet the countryside. The photos remind me of the William Shatner classic "Kingdom of the Spiders" (1977).

"Spiderwebs Blanket Countryside After Australian Floods" (National Geographic) (photos by Daniel Munoz/Reuters)

• [Andrew Rockefeller]

  G’ morning from Australia. Come visit next time you’ve got some time on your hands ;)

  • [twianto]

    Blanketed with spider webs? Check. Deadly pine cones? Check. Baby-suffocating cane toads? Check.

    Alright, my list of prerequisites is complete; I’m on my way.

    • [chenille]

      You left out the actual threat: floods. I don’t think wolf spiders are dangerous and right now they’re in the same situation as the people, just doing what they can to cope. I’m impressed they’re able to do this much.

    • [katos]

       Don’t forget this happy little fella: http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2008/10/23/11601_local-news.html

    • [Vian Lawson]

       The Scared Weird Little Guys have made this enticing travelogue:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdihHnaOQsk&feature=related

      They left out a few, of course; didn’t want to scare anyone.

    • [teapot]

       You left out the deadliest of all: Drop Bears

      • [Michael Smith]

         And hoop snakes.

• [Joseph Francis]

  Richard Kadrey’s take
  https://twitter.com/#!/Richard_Kadrey/status/177509306495803392

• [Stefan Jones]

  And while you’re carefully tip-toe’ing around the webs, up above drop bears are getting ready to pounce . . .

• [bardfinn]

  I concur with Kadrey.

  THERAPY SESSION STAT

• [awjt]

  Ummmmm……  FUCKEN AUSTRALIA.

• [Michael Henkel]

  i’m NEVER going to australia. well, not until i’m ready to die.

  • [teapot]

    Our sensible gun control laws mean that it’s safer to live your entire life walking around without shoes or clothes than to take an evening stroll through a major US city.

    But seriously…. how is it that I can live in Australia and not see anything about this until reading BB? Domestic media fail.

    • [RedShirt77]

       What are your flame thrower laws like in Aussie land?  Because If you need me i will be in the garage building one.

      • [teapot]

        We are quite prone to bush fires (you guys call them forest fires, I know) – so as long as there’s not a total fire ban in place at the time anything goes. Queensland intensively farms sugar cane so they’ve probably got industrial-grade harvester-mounted varieties up there.

        • [RedShirt77]

          I have relatives in the south  and read a book as a kid about Aussie fires.  Something about dragons in the title.   

      • [exile]

        February Dragon by Colin Thiele

• [brerrabbit23]

  I’m sure it drives the people who live amongst them crazy, but I think it’s beautiful.

• [thezarray]

  I swear to god that Australia is some kind of D&D setting (deadly land, deadly animals, underground cities that are also probably full of deadly treasure) and that Australians are six ft tall dwarfs. 

• [skeletoncityrepeater]

  I,  for one,  welcome our new web-shooting overlords.

• [Will Bueche]

  Fire, and lots of it.

  • [Brad Zimmerman]

    Fire?  There couldn’t possibly be enough of it.  What is needed is a combination of nuclear and biological weapons dropped from orbit (preferably while orbiting an entirely different planet).  The kind of weapons that the military-industrial complex in the US would love to develop, the kind of weapons that are automatically considered a war crime if ever actually used.

    Also, lava.  Empty the core out on the surface.  

    And yes we all know that spiders get bugs and are food and etc etc but really they are small, evil, too quiet, have way too many eyes, legs, fangs, and pincers.  So they need to go and damn the ecological repercussions.

    • [Donald Petersen]

      Say, do you feel something slightly itchy on your shoulder?

• [sdmikev]

  My wife would literally have a heart attack if she saw all those spiders in one place..

  • [penguinchris]

    You have to consider the alternative… in non-flood conditions, all of these spiders are still there – but you can’t see them.

    • [absimiliard]

      GAHHHH!!!!!!

      -abs doesn’t really mind spiders all that much, it’s mostly just a funny response, but he would appreciate it if no one directed his wife to this page (because that would be her actual response to seeing either of those photos)

• [Godfree]

  NOPE.

• [Teller]

  “I left your phone in the car.”
  “I hate you.”

• [theophrastvs]

  Looks like a harvestable commodity to me…  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17232058

  (just need tiny whips … oo, made of their own silk… that’s nasty)

• [Ben Hennessy]

  This gives me the jibblies.

• [sean]

  Australia might be arid , deadly, and inhospitable, but at least they don’t have to listen to Outback Steak House commercials with some dim arsehole using a fake Ozzie accent.

• [Ipo]

   I saw that movie.