WASHINGTON — Just what the world needed: raining spiders.
It’s happening in Goulburn, Australia — of course it’s in Australia — where residents are reporting that spiders are raining from the sky, creating an effect that looks like “this tunnel of webs going up for a couple of hundred meters into the sky,” covering houses and — brace yourself — getting into their beards, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
One woman described sitting on her front veranda, watching what looked like silk threads “floating through the sky.” Sounds beautiful, except, you know — spiders.
The man with spiders in his beard exclaimed on Facebook, “Someone call a scientist!”
Well, the Herald did. A naturalist from the Australian Museum calls it “Angel Hair,” and says it’s common — just not from thousands of spiders at once. A spider climbs up to a high point, releases some silk from its — well, its behind (so much for the beautiful silky effect) — and flies off on it. Such “ballooning” flights can sometimes cover miles.
It’s rare for masses of spiders to do it all at the same time, though. Weather conditions probably have a lot to do with why so many did it in unison, a University of Akron biology professor tells LiveScience.
Professor Todd Blackledge says there’s no danger to people — possible crop damage is almost certainly the worst thing that can really happen.
Sure. That’s what they always say in the first half-hour of the summer blockbuster disaster movie.
