It's Raining Spiders. Hallelujah?
at The Independent
Arachnophobes be warned: it is (allegedly)
in Australia.
In the more ridiculous news of the day, scientists have confirmed that it is possible for the eight-legged creatures to be falling from the sky in southern Australia.
Earlier this month astonished locals told The Sydney Morning Herald that their area had been “invaded by spiders”.
Ian Watson, who lives in the New South Wales’ town of Goulburn near the east coast, said the invasion of spiders – while beautiful – was also “annoying”.
READ MORE: IT’S 'RAINING SPIDERS' IN BRAZIL
"The whole place was covered in these little black spiderlings and when I looked up at the sun it was like this tunnel of webs going up for a couple of hundred metres into the sky," he told the The SMH.
Other residents also reported seeing the spiders on 4 May, with one woman claiming she saw what appeared to be silk thread “floating through the sky”.
Her sighting is due to a migration technique commonly associated with spiders, explains naturlist Martyn Robinson from the Australian Museum.
‘Ballooning,’ usually used by baby spiders, sees the arachnoids climb to the top of tall vegetation before releasing a silk balloon and allowing the wind to carry them. Spiders have been recorded travelling up to three kilometres using this method.
"They can literally travel for kilometres … which is why every continent has spiders. Even in Antarctica they regularly turn up but just die," he told The SMH.
The mass migration of spiders recently means that occasionally you can have entire areas covered in the thin gossamer of spiders, leading to some enthusiasts calling it Angel Hair.