Science does have its creepy side. Then again, why would it not? Still, perhaps the phrase raining spiders ought to serve as a warning about what comes next.
And while the idea of spiders falling from the sky like rain is not entirely accurate, well, you get the picture. Arachnophobes might want to skip Nadia Drake’s report for Wired Science:
When 20-year-old web designer Erick Reis left a friend’s house on Sunday, he saw what looked like thousands of spiders overhead, reported G1, a Brazilian news site, on Feb. 8. The large, sturdy spiders were hanging from power lines and poles, and crawling around on a vast network of silk strands spun over the town of Santo Antonio da Platina.
Reis did what many of us might do: He pulled out his camera and shot a video of spiders seemingly falling from the sky.
As creeptastic is it may be, “The phenomenon observed is not really surprising,” said Leticia Aviles, who studies social spiders at the University of British Columbia. “Either social or colonial spiders may occur in large aggregations, as the one shown in the video.” The reason, she and others say, is simple: This is how they hunt.
Er … yeah. I’m not a fan of spiders. Ironically, I had a dream the night before I saw this article that had something to do with a staggering number of spiders. I have no idea why, or what it means. Forgive me, please, if I haven’t paused to dwell on the Freudian or Jungian interpretive values involved.
novus advocatus scientiae 