Weird / Funny

Giant Spider Webs Appear In Dallas Suburb Of Rowlett

giant spider webs

Residents of the Dallas suburb of Rowlett got a shock last week when they awoke to giant spider webs in the trees along one street.

The town’s CA Roan Drive received early but very spooky Halloween decorations after a community of spiders spun webs reaching up to 40 feet into the trees. While the huge webs are not unprecedented, they are rare.

CA Roan Drive is a stretch of road running through Lakeside Park South in Rowlett. The spiders appear to have taken over a swath of trees along a stretch of the road roughly the length of a football field.

Local urban entomologist Mike Merchant was quoted by AgriLife Today as having said that it’s quite rare to find such large webs because “spiders typically work alone to construct their webs.”

Spiders typically work alone to construct their webs. So finding spiders working together to build a huge web in what was more of a cooperative or ‘communal’ scenario was a real surprise for many experts.

According to Merchant, spiders only build large communal nests when the conditions are just right, such as a huge amount of small insects.

This isn’t the first giant web spotted in Texas, as according to Discovery News, a giant spider web was found in Lake Tawakoni State Park in 2007. That communal web was constructed by a spiders known as Tetragnatha guatemalensis. The spiders that built the webs in Rowlett have not been identified yet, although they’re likely in the Tetragnathidae family as well.

Merchant stressed that the Tetragnatha spiders are not aggressive or harmful to humans at all and insecticides are not necessary to get rid of them. The species basically just makes webs that are creepy but entirely benign. The entomologist encourages residents to admire the “artwork,” adding “you may want to take a few moments to stop and admire the spider handiwork (while driving along CA Roan Drive).”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8YnahAwfmg

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