Woman And Her Father Found An Unbelievably Large Spider Web In Their Backyard
Mel Allen lives in Sydney with her dad. Living there, they have become quite accustomed to seeing giant-sized wildlife.
Still, there are things that take their breath away. One fine day, Allen's father was in the backyard hanging clothes on the clothesline to dry when he spotted a string that was silky and shiny.
Allen came out to the backyard when her dad called, and she could not believe her eyes. She saw a huge spider web hanging between two large trees.
The spider web was so large and in a perfect wheel-like shape, made of its silky, thick strings. It all looked fake, almost like the ones you find at Halloween stores.
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."
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."
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.
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