Spider Web Covers Field

doconnor writes "A huge spider web covering a clover field was found by biology professor Brian Thair. It was made by millions of spiders and was thick enough to hold coins. It wasn't sticky for catching insects. It's not known why the spiders did it. CBC News has an article and an interview in RealAudio."

The spiders were probably..

[Kaeru the Frog]

..tired of people throwing coins at them.

Re:The spiders were probably..

[Bob Vila's Hammer]

Ha, the worlds first Spiderbank.

Re:The spiders were probably..

[Wolfrider]

--Doing it for Art's sake, and Because It Could Be Done. Kinda like climbing Mt. Everest. :b

Re:The spiders were probably..

[brandona788]

They heard of the possible meteors hitting the earth and decided to make a pad for us. How thoughtful!

Check the World Record

[immanis]

from Guinnes Book Of World Records [guinnesworldrecords.com] :

Largest Outdoor Spiders' Web In October, 1998, a cobweb that covered the entire 4.54-ha (11.2-acre) playing field at Kineton High School, Warwick, England, was discovered by Ken Thompson - the school's caretaker. It had been created by thousands of black money spiders.

I seem to remember another huge one that was ongoing, but I don;t remember where I saw it...

Re:Check the World Record

[GigsVT]

discovered by Ken Thompson

What they don't tell you is that this was the inspiration for the network centric nature of UNIX. Thompson, being a visionary, knew that there eventually would be a world wide web of UNIX systems.

Re:Check the World Record

[Sprunkys]

Can anyone please explain how you miss something like that growing?

Do these spiders do this in one night, or did the caretaker (and everyone else using the playing field) suddenly realize that grass really shouldn't be white?

Re:Check the World Record

[canadian_right]

I'm not totally sure about spiders that do the fluffly trampoline style webs, but orb weavers do a new web each day, and it takes them 2 to 3 hours to weave it. Most likely the giant web did in fact fact appear overnight.

Re:Check the World Record

[lommer]

Well, that should make this a new record then, and by an enormous margin as they supposedly discovered "a silky, white web stretching 60 hectares across a field."*

*emphasis added

Re:Check the World Record

[danratherfan]

So that's why they did it! They were going for the world record!

I didn't know spiders were so competitive. ;)

Just a misunderstanding

[L. VeGas]

They heard about the World Wide Web and assumed it was their responsibility.

bwaaaa haaa haaa

What the spiders were thingking:

[Unknown Poltroon]

1. Spin big web.
2: ??????????
3: Big Profits!!!

Re:What the spiders were thingking:

[falzer]

Finally step two has been found:
2: Get people to put coins on the web.

Eight legged freaks?

[macdaddy357]

A giant web that might be strong enough to catch people! That would be really scary if the story included a picture.

Re:Eight legged freaks?

[wkitchen]

A giant web that might be strong enough to catch people! That would be really scary if the story included a picture.

I've had spiders build webs accross the frame of my front door. I can just imagine the spider thinking, "Oh man, if I can catch just one of those things, I'll never go hungry again!"

Re:Eight legged freaks?

[rherbert]

You can tell you're a geek... If you went outside more often, perhaps spider webs wouldn't accumulate across your front door. :)

This is

[CableModemSniper]

one of those stories that just screams for some witty comments. However I doubt we'll see any. The best (or worst) will probably be jerks making meta-comments try to sound clever.

Ssshhh...

[jki]

There were "in the order of tens of millions of spiders running frantically back and forth," but they weren't interacting with each other. Since the spiders didn't seem to care if an occasional insect stumbled into their construction, Thair doesn't think it was built for trapping purposes.

Don't tell anyone, but I think I have found a secret way to control the spiders by using gnuplot [gnuplot.info]...

It's obvious why the spiders did it...

[psyconaut]

...they were tired of making damn crop circles trying to get our attention!!!!

DUH! ;-)

-psy

wow

[tps12]

Sounds like a job for young Bilbo Baggins and his faithful Elven blade, Sting!

Re:wow

[hplasm]

Sounds like a job for a young Sting and his faithful Tantic Sex Blade..

Protection...

[camelrider]

...from the Leonid meteor shower, of course.

Re:Scientist burns penis with hot laptop

[Urox]

There appear to be several naked stories on CNN: university porn videos, something about keeping your clothes on... I stopped reading CNN long ago because it annoyed me too much that a professional news website couldn't run themselves through a spell checker.

Re:Scientist burns penis with hot laptop

[CableModemSniper]

Wow. This is not a troll or Goatse.cx link. That is amazing. I hope someone submits it.

Re:Scientist burns penis with hot laptop

[redfiche]

It was rejected.

Re:Scientist burns penis with hot laptop

[R.Caley]

[the story] was rejected.

Clearly /. are supressing this story while they buy in a range of caffine-enhanced burn treatment products for sale on thinkgeek.

Uh

[nosferatu-man]

Remind me to stay out of Northern British Columbia. As if the man eating grizzlies and cougars weren't enough.

'jfb

Re:Uh

[CyberDong]

As if the man eating grizzlies and cougars weren't enough.

I've been to the bars in Northern BC. You're more likely to find grizzlies and a man eating cougars (after last call)...

Radio Telescope

[heliocentric]

I think they are trying to receive communications from deep space and begin their plans for place travel. This is just to compete with the humans at the Arecibo radio telescope.

Oh dear god!

[Syncdata]

Brian Thair of the College of New Caledonia in Prince George said he saw a silky, white web stretching 60 hectares across a field.
This is the end, my friends. Spiders have developed civilization, and their system of measurement is Hectares. Batton down the hatches!

Worst.Journalism.Ever

[Syncdata]

Please, whatever you in the CBC online news staff do, don't tell me what species of spider it was that built this structure. Oh, and also, don't include a photo, because I'm sure noone would want to see an image of this anomoly. Do your best just to speculate about why they built the web, and make sure to include a funny joke at the end, something about aliens perhaps.

Species is not yet known

[shfted!]

I'm from Prince George. The story and pictures have been in the local papers for a couple weeks. The species of spider has not yet been identified, so how could they tell you what it is? Don't be so judgemental.

Re:Species is not yet known

[CyberDong]

Do you know if a local paper has a website with pictures (of the spider web...)?

Re:Species is not yet known

[shfted!]

Since all the papers are lame around here (only 80,000 in the city, so they see no need for a web archive), i can't help you out.

Re:Species is not yet known

[richie2000]

they see no need for a web archive

*groan* If you did that one on purpose, I will hunt you down and give you karma. By force, if necessary!

Re:Worst.Journalism.Ever

[lommer]

It's a radio show that's covering this story, so why the hell would they want pictures? The website you are looking at is the web-presence of the radio show, and isn't supposed to be anything more.

As another poster mentioned, the reason they didn't give you the species of the spider is because it hasn't been determined yet.

And, IMHO, the CBC is a damn good news reporting agency.

Re:Worst.Journalism.Ever

[Wil63]

>>It's a radio show that's covering this story, so why the hell would they want pictures? The website you are looking at is the web-presence of the radio show, and isn't supposed to be anything more. WRONG! Because it's on the Web. what's the point of putting it online in ANOTHER MEDIUM if there's no pic?

Re:Worst.Journalism.Ever

[FunkMonkey#9]

WRONG! Because it's on the Web. what's the point of putting it online in ANOTHER MEDIUM if there's no pic?

Fine. I'll call Project Gutenberg [gutenberg.org] and get them to purge the archives.

Re:Worst.Journalism.Ever

[gwyrdd benyw]

The article included several photos. Click on "web of mystery" which appears just after the first paragraph.

Well duh...

[nathanh]

It was made by millions of spiders and was thick enough to hold coins. It wasn't sticky for catching insects. It's not known why the spiders did it.

The spiders aren't trying to catch insects anymore. They're trying to catch entymologists. Far more meat on a 40 year old scientist than a 2 month old beetle.

Any Pictures?

[Midnight Thunder]

If someone knows any site with pictures of the field, could you please provide us with a link.

Clusterweb?

[dacarr]

Perhaps they were trying to put together a beowulf cluster.

They probably read slashdot...

[Taper]

The spiders probably saw this story [slashdot.org] and decided, heck, let's catch us a plane...

Reminds me of...

[teqo]

Phase IV [doorcounty-wi.com]

(Yes, I know, those were ants... Anyway... .)

...a Simpsons reference!

[c.emmertfoster]

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have just lost the picture.
But what we've seen speaks for itself.
The Corvair spacecraft has apparently been taken over, conquered if you will, by a master race of giant space ants.
It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them.
One thing is for certain, there is no stopping them the ants will soon be here.
And I for one welcome our new insect overlords.
Would like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality I could be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar cave.

That's gotta be it

[helix400]

It was made by millions of spiders and was thick enough to hold coins. It wasn't sticky for catching insects. It's not known why the spiders did it.

They did it because they can.

Re:That's gotta be it

[hplasm]

Giant Spider Conference Pavillion. To discuss forthcoming attack on Hollywood for decades of anti-spider B Movies. Guest speaker Stan Lee.

I neard about this on NPR

[azav]

But it's too bad no one thought to take PICTURES.

Wasn't anyone thinking?

Re:I neard about this on NPR

[corbettw]

You heard it on NPR, and wonder where the pictures were.... Tell me, what color is the sky in your world?

Sorry, my bad

[Caractacus Potts]

Sorry, those were my genetically modified spiders. No need to be alarmed, it won't happen again.

You see the world's largest web

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

And you don't take a photo. Either you're a liar, dumb, or both.

Hoax!

[Cyno01]

Oh c'mon, this is probably just some promo stunt for the Spider-man Sequel

alternate joke

They probably got annoyed with those ads for MSN 8 and decided to spin a web to catch those idiots in the butterfly suits.

Just a thought

[teamhasnoi]

Perhaps it was to keep insects IN the field?

OR something FAR MORE SINISTER!

Link changes

[hether]

I went back to read this and now the article links to a story about the son of a drug boss being arrested. Not near as interesting as huge spider webs. :(

Why no pictures?

[Mustang Matt]

I would have liked to have seen a picture of this.

The truth is...

[nukey56]

...that this was an escaped batch of terrorist-fighting spiders, specially bred to infest parcels of land which might be profiled as terrorist-breeding grounds. By eliminating the threat of open spaces, we can reduce terrorism!

Modding me down only makes you a terrorist.