Wildlife

'Spider Rain'

Millions of tiny spiders recently fell from the sky in Australia, alarming residents whose properties were suddenly covered with not only the creepy critters, but also mounds of their silky threads. But that's not where the frightful news ends: Experts say that such arachnid rains aren't as uncommon as you might think.

This month's spider downpour in the country's Southern Tablelands region is just the most recent example of a phenomenon commonly known as "spider rain" or, in some circles, "angel hair," because of the silky, hairlike threads the spiders leave behind.

Ballooning is a not-uncommon behaviour of many spiders. They climb some high area and stick their abdomen up in the air and release silk. Then they just take off. This is going on all around us all the time. We just don’t notice it.

The reason people don't usually notice this ingenious spider behaviour is that it's not common for millions of spiders to do this at the same time, and then land in the same place. There was probably a change in the weather and conditions were optimal for ballooning and resulted in the large numbers of spiders flying about simultaneously.