New Spider Catches Attention in Giant Web

[n2doc]

Analysis by Zahra Hirji

Insect scientists recently made a huge discovery when they stumbled upon a new spider species in Madagascar that constructs webs up to 82 feet in length.

Even more impressive than the enormity of the webs is their location. Researchers Matjaz Kuntner and Ingi Agnarsson of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History found the giant webs suspended across flowing bodies of water. It's the first time any spider has been shown to achieve such a feat, the team reported in a new study.

The enigmatic Darwin bark spider (Caerostris darwini) is part of a poorly known family of spiders with only 11 known species, all in the Old World. Researchers have only observed the female insect for most of these species.

Kuntner and Agnarsson were fortunate enough to capture both female and male Darwin spiders. “The females are just over 2 centimeters (.78 inches) in body size, plus legs, making them about the size of a large coin, or even a human thumb. The males are tiny, about 5 times smaller,” Kuntner told Discovery News.


http://news.discovery.com/animals/new-spider-catches-attention-in-giant-web.html

[tabatha]

1. How was it missed before?

[xchrom]

2. It seems so logical when you think about flying insects

Moving over bodies of water.

Go where the prey is.

[pokerfan]

3. I once had a spider build a web across my doorway

literally overnight. I opened the door in the morning and walked into a partially constructed web. I don't know what she was thinking except that she wouldn't have had to worry about food for a long, long time.

[sofa king]

4. I once was attacked by dozens of spiders while tripping.

Let's see. Way back in about 1990 some friends of mine and I got the bright idea to put way too much reefer and too many shrooms into a batch of microwave brownies, then got the bright idea to go tubing on the Shenandoah River at Harper's Ferry.

By the time we got there we were all just... not in touch with reality. Although we were warned that the river was high, we decided to go tubing anyway. We put in on the Shenandoah about half a mile above where it meets the Potomac.

About ninety seconds later I'd shot the entire length of the Shenandoah, skying over 5-foot high brown rapids and somehow hanging on to my tube. In the calm water where the two rivers meet, I could hear the roar of the redoubled Potomac below, and decided that then was a good time to make my way to shore and climb up to the highway.

It was a considerable swim just to reach the river's edge, with my other friends jeering me the whole way. As I neared the shore I realized that what I thought was foliage along the bank was actually the tops of submerged trees, and that the river wasn't just high, it was about nine feet above the normal bank. When I reached the shore I slid off the tube and sank into water over my head! And at about that point, the fear and dope and mushrooms were all kicking each other in the ass.

I tried to call out a warning to my friends, but they were already drifting into the rapids. My last coherent thought was that I had to get up to the highway so that I could flag down some help for my friends. Then I moved out through the forest.

After a few hundred feet, I began to feel a pinching and burning sensation all up and down my arms and my legs and my neck. About the same time I realized I was covered from head to toe in spiderwebs. And fat, giant orange spiders that were biting the shit out of me.

Naturally I freaked out.

It turns out the spiders, which are fairly common around here, were building their webs between the trees, so each web was easily nine or ten feet across, and each spider was huge and mean, and entangled in their own webs and those of others so they really had no recourse but to bite me.

Eventually I made my way up to the highway, and my friends all survived, though they lost all shoes, glasses, and anything except their shorts and (fortunately) car keys. One guy was trapped in a hydraulic for a couple of minutes, breathing only when he broke the surface briefly each go-around, while shrooming.

No lessons were learned.

[pokerfan]

5. Wow!

:scared:

[sofa king]

6. The weird part about it is that I'm much nicer to spiders now.

I used to squash 'em every time I saw them, but now I mostly leave them be. I read in some bathroom book once that 30% of all humans have an instinctive fear of spiders or snakes. Obviously, I'm not one of those guys, because if I had been I'd probably still be in need of therapy. Instead, I came through it with a little more respect for spiders... and raging rivers.

Oh, and I learned a healthy hiking tip, too. Instead of carrying a walking stick while hiking, now I take a little 4 1/2 foot fishing rod, and wave it in front of me to bust through the webs.