The warmer weather is said to have caused thousands of spiders to flood homes, but if you’re concerned about the invasion, spare a thought for the owners of a waste treatment plant in the US.
The Baltimore property was so riddled with arachnids that webbing covered approximately 95 per cent of the entire building.
This was the equivalent to four acres - or three American football fields - and was said to house more than 107 million of the eight-legged critters.
The web was discovered at the Baltimore Wastewater Treatment Plant in 2009 (pictured) and experts predicted there were approximately 35,176 spiders per cubic metre of space
Experts estimated there were around 35,176 spiders per cubic square metre of space. Each spider measured around half an inch, including legs.
These spiders included a species known as a Long-jawed orb weaver, or Tetragnathidae, typically found in damp or swamp habitats. They have long slim bodies with shiny abdomens.
Orb webs produced by the Araneidae species, of which the Tetragnathidae is a member, are used for catching prey.
Other webs are used either for reproduction, or to help spiders find their way back to a specific location.
The giant web was originally reported by the owners of the Baltimore Wastewater Treatment Plant to pest controllers in 2009, and the photos were released as part of a Halloween feature on Wired.
The were taken from Albert Greene’s paper, ‘An Immense Concentration of Orb-Weaving Spiders With Communal Webbing in a Man-Made Structural Habitat’.
According to the researchers, the webbing was so heavy it even damaged light fixtures and clumps of web were, in some places, as ‘thick as a fire hose.’
The same year that the Baltimore web was removed, scientists in Madagascar discovered one of the strongest webs ever created.
Darwin’s bark spider produces webs that typically stretch more than 50ft (15 metres) wide, made of dragline silk.
The property was so riddled with arachnids that webbing (pictured) covered approximately 95 per cent of the entire building. This was the equivalent to four acres - or three American football fields - and was said to contain more than 107 million spiders
These spiders included a species known as a Long-jawed orb weaver, or Tetragnathidae, typically found in damp or swamp habitats. Orb webs produced by the Araneidae species, of which the Tetragnathidae is a member, are used for catching prey (pictured)
This type of silk is said have the same tensile strength as high-grade alloy steel.
And last month, researchers in Guyana discovered a puppy-sized spider living in the rainforest.
Known as the South American Goliath birdeater, the spider was spotted by entomologist and photographer Piotr Naskrecki from Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology.
He wrote on his blog that the arachnid is officially the world’s largest spider, according to the Guinness World Record book, and it’s legs can grow up to a foot (30cm) long.
It can also weigh up 6 ounces (170g), which the photographer compared to the same weight as a newborn puppy.
Among the spiders discovered at the property was the Long-jawed orb weaver, or Tetragnathidae (file image)
The pictures featured in Albert Greene’s paper, ‘An Immense Concentration of Orb-Weaving Spiders With Communal Webbing in a Man-Made Structural Habitat’. According to reports, the webbing was so heavy it damaged light fixtures (pictured left) and clumps of web (right) were, in some places, as ‘thick as a fire hose’
Mr Greene wrote in this paper: 'We were unprepared for the sheer scale of the spider population and the extraordinary masses of both three dimensional and sheet-like webbing that blanketed much of the facility’s cavernous interior' (pictured)
Elsewhere, a video filmed in California in October appeared to show baby spiders ‘exploding’ from their mothers’ back
The bizarre 'defence mechanism' was filmed when Mathew Duncan, of Chula Vista, California, when he captured two adult spiders in a jar.
Dr Judith Lock, an expert in behavioural ecology at the University of Southampton, told MailOnline at the time that the spiderlings jumped off their mother's backs when she was under threat.
A few species of spiders allow their offspring to ride on their backs while they are small.
This gives them a better chance of not being eaten.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2819066/Scared-spiders-Look-away-Terrifying-photos-reveal-FOUR-ACRE-web-teeming-107-MILLION-arachnids.html#ixzz3I2bXxWIu
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