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The world’s largest known spider web, believed to contain thousands of arachnids, has been discovered in a cave in Albanian-Greek Limit.
After researchers published their findings about two different spider species living peacefully in a huge colony nestled in a pitch-black, sulfur-rich cave, evolutionary biologist Lena Grinstead compared this “extremely rare” phenomenon to humans living in an apartment block.
“When I saw this study, I was very excited because…group living is really rare in spiders,” said Dr Grinstead, a senior lecturer at UK University of Portsmouthtold the Associated Press. “The fact that this huge colony of spiders lived in a place that no one had noticed before – I find extremely exciting.”
The results of the study, published last month in the journal Subterranean Biology, spread rapidly online due to striking images of the giant 1,140-square-foot spider web, a carpet-thick web stretched along the wall of a narrow passage inside the Sulfur Cave, which stretches from its entrance in Greece to Albania.
This arachnophobe’s worst nightmare was quickly dubbed “the world’s largest spider web.”
But the most amazing thing about the spider colony – which contains an estimated 110,000 spiders – has less to do with its size and more to do with what scientists found inside the giant cluster of funnel-shaped webs.
Two different species of spiders – about 69,000 Tegenaria domestica, or common house spiders, and 42,000 Prinerigone vagans – were living and thriving together. This behavior, which had never been seen before, stunned scientists because normally, the larger house spider would prey on its smaller neighbor.
“Often if you have spiders around, they will fight and eat each other,” said Dr. Grinstead, who was not part of the cave study but has researched spiders extensively. “We sometimes find that if food is abundant they become a little less aggressive.”
abundant food source
Scientist They are keen to understand how and why both species came to peacefully co-exist in a “permanently dark area” about 50 meters (164 ft) from the cave entrance, which is formed by the waters of the Sarandaporo River to form the Vromoner Valley.
Part of the answer, the research suggests, may lie in the combination of the estimated 2.4 million midge flies that buzz around the spider colony – an “unusually dense swarm” that provides a constant food source in an otherwise predator-scarce environment. Scientists also speculate that the spiders’ vision may be impaired due to the darkness of their friendly habitat.
However, Dr. Grinstead says it’s more likely that larger spiders evolved or became accustomed to responding to vibration signals when small flies land on their silken webs – and perhaps wouldn’t attack otherwise.
,spidersIn general, stuff isn’t particularly good to look at… and that includes these two species,” he said, adding that the two species “may cooperate to some extent in web building… but I think it’s highly unlikely that they cooperate in anything like capturing prey, caring for young, or caring for each other’s young.”
Dr. Grinstead draws parallels between spiders living together and how humans live together in apartment blocks.
“You are very happy to share the stairs, the lift,” she said. “But if someone comes into your living room and you haven’t invited them, you will be aggressive towards them.”
He said that while many spiders are “usually solitary, very aggressive” towards other creatures, once spiders develop the ability to live in groups, cohabitation of the two species is “relatively common”.
“But still, because these two species have never been found living together and have never been found living in groups, it makes it particularly exciting,” she said.
‘The net is dense – like a blanket’
Dr. Blerina Vrenozi, a biologist and zoologist at the University of Tirana in Albania who co-authored the paper, told the AP that this year’s expeditions helped understand “how this mystery was able to exist there.”
“The dna Interesting because they revealed that the species that lives inside the cave is different from the species that lives outside the cave.” He said, ”So it is the same species, but the DNA is different.”
The giant web of the cave colony was first observed in 2021 by a team of Czech speleologists led by Marek Audi. A year later, the Czech team expanded to include scientists from multiple universities, leading to the recently published scientific paper.
Audi said, “The web is dense; it’s like a blanket, and when there is any danger, the female crawls back and hides, and no creature of higher order can get her out of there.” “Cave spiders lay about a third as many eggs as spiders that live outside. Because it is certain that they will raise their offspring there… they can afford to lay fewer eggs.”
Audi said the cave, which is also home to colonies of large bats, also thrives on the abundance of midges inside the humid, dark space. “Both spiders and bats are constantly having a party out there,” he said.
appears to be the ideal environment
The study said the method used may “slightly overestimate” the total population of spiders in the colony, as some funnel webs may be abandoned or empty. However, other experts agree that the team’s exciting new research could provide broad evolutionary clues and is worthy of deeper study.
Dr. Sarah Goodacre, professor of evolutionary biology and genetics in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Nottingham, UK, says these types of research projects help pave the way for more studies that “may prove fundamental to our understanding of what forces shape the world around us – spidery or not.”
He said, “Natural selection will favor the ‘best’ strategies… the ‘winning strategy’, whatever that is.” “I guess the benefits of being part of this community far outweigh the costs.”
He said that if the dynamics changed in the seemingly ideal environment of abundant food and relative security, “freeloading would emerge and it would all be over.”
Hopefully the politics of co-existence will not prove complicated above ground. Audi said Albania has already asked which side the newly famous spiders are on.
“From a conservation standpoint, we did something interesting there and marked a boundary,” he said. “I just looked at it – and the spider web is on the Greek side.”
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Stanislav Hodina in Prague; Florent Bajrami in Pristina, Kosovo, contributed to this report.