World’s biggest spiderweb discovered inside ‘Sulfur Cave’ with 111,000 arachnids living in pitch black on the Albanian-Greek border

https://www.livescience.com/animals/spiders/worlds-biggest-spiderweb-discovered-inside-sulfur-cave-with-111-000-arachnids-living-in-pitch-black

by Ophiuchus171

38 comments

  5. Fascinating, I’d defo like more posts about nature on this sub!

  9. > The multilayered web along a wall near the cave entrance is home to a colony of approximately 69,000 Tegenaria domestica (also known as the domestic house spider) and 42,000 Prinerigone vagans spiders. This is believed to be the first documented case of colonial web formation for both species.

    > To estimate the colony size, the study authors counted individual funnel webs in random sections and extrapolated the density. After measuring the length and width of the web-covered wall section, they calculated the surface area to be 106 square meters.

    > The researchers also wanted to know how the spiders were surviving and what was driving the colonial behavior. Sulfur caves are unique and harsh living environments because there’s no sunlight and high levels of toxic hydrogen sulfide gas.

    > Using stable isotope analysis, a common tool in ecology for mapping food webs, the team discovered that the arachnids were not eating insects flying in from the outside of the cave. Instead, the entire food chain is powered by sulfur-oxidizing microbes that thrive in the cave system and are consumed by tiny chironomid flies (non-biting midges) that hatch from the water. These small insects are easily caught in the web, providing an abundant, continuous food source.

    > Another key discovery was that the spiders living in the cave are genetically distinct from the same species living just outside. This suggests they are becoming isolated as they adapt to the cave’s unique environment. Ultimately, the team concluded that the combination of this genetic isolation and their food source is the primary reason these typically solitary spiders have developed colonial behavior.

    https://phys.org/news/2025-11-sulfur-cave-spiders-arachnid-megacity.html

    Some snippets.

  11. Spiders get such an unjust bad rep, little fuckers just want to be left alone and eat little insect pests 

  12. Today in places I will never visit…

    It is academic of nature being fascinating, though, I just prefer being fascinated from half a continent away

  23. “You have to experience it to truly know what it feels like.” No, thanks. I like to sleep at night.

  24. Flood that shit.

    It’s crazy some gulliable folks here actually believed arachnid propaganda and considers them friends now. They are NOT your friends! They want to turn your innards into a soup and fuckin drink you for fucks sake!

    Also fun fact, spiders are considered holy in Islam. Just saying.

  25. “Nuke the Balkans.”

    “But it’s so far awa- ”

    “NUKE IT!!!”

  27. Millions of years after humans have gone extinct, these spiders will still be going about their merry ways

    Also deepest respect to the people crawling into these caves for science

  29. Very interested but not a chance am I going in that cave

  32. *I’m sorry Albania, but we’re going to have to nuke you.*

  35. That guy in the video just keeps pressing that fragile spiderweb-curtain with his hand, again and again, testing its strength. It didn’t tear. Thousands of spiders would have been dire to bear.

  37. I think I read this in a book before, I know how it starts before they become starfaring.

  38. That’s so cool! I did my paper for license on spiders at my university with one of the guys!

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