Woman And Her Father Found An Unbelievably Large Spider Web In Their Backyard
Mel Allen and her father got a backyard surprise that looked more like a movie prop than something real. In Sydney, where giant wildlife is already part of daily life, they still were not prepared for what was hanging between two trees.
It started when Allen's dad noticed a silky, shiny strand while hanging clothes on the line. Allen came outside after he called her over, and the sight stopped her in her tracks, a massive spider web stretched out in a perfect wheel shape. Read on.
To better present the hugeness of the spider web, Allen asked her father to act as a scale for her photograph. He stood next to it, and the web was almost the same height as he was.
"I was pretty impressed with the size of it, but also with how near-perfect it was," Allen shared. "But I was also slightly terrified thinking about how big the spider that made the web must be."
The scale of it is hard to miss.
It also reminds us of the homeowner whose cats dragged a massive tarantula inside, then vanished it.
Allen was curious to see the artist behind this web, the spider.
She had an idea that if the web was that big, then the spider must also be unusually large. After some searching in her dad's yard, she spotted the spider.
"I found the spider in question asleep on a curled-up leaf in one of the trees the web was hanging from," Allen said. It was a female golden orb-weaver.
It is also known as a banana spider or a giant wood spider. The spider was sitting in a quiet place, hiding from the morning sun.
The male species of this type of spider is small in size, while the female is large, with a body size of 1.5 inches and legs that are 4 to 5 inches in length.
It only took her a night to build this large web, and the choice of location was perfect for catching insects.
These large spider webs also offer protection to the spiders from their predators. "The golden orb-weaving spiders build large, semi-permanent orb webs," the Australian Museum shares.
"The strong silk has a golden sheen. These spiders remain in their webs day and night and gain some protection from bird attacks by the presence of a 'barrier network' of threads on one or both sides of the orb web."
That timing made the whole thing even more impressive.
The good thing is that these golden orb-weavers do not cause any harm to human beings, as they are not very keen on biting.
If they feel threatened, they simply cause their web to vibrate in order to distract the threat. Allen's dad didn't mind having this large spider in his yard, as the spider does not bother anyone.
So, he is happy to share the yard with it.
Think her spider was huge? See the world’s largest spider moved into Northern South America.
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