Travel to Aitoliko, Greece, this week, and you might never travel again as reports are emerging that spiders are overrunning parts of the coastal Greek town.
The town, which is known as “Little Venice,” has become home to thousands of Tetragnatha genus — a spider that is no more than 0.7 inches long — blanketing the town in a layer of silky spider webs. In recent days, the spider webs have covered everything from trees and plants to even boats along the Aitoliko lagoon.
The reason, according to reports, for the network of spider webs covering a few hundred meters of shoreline in the town is thanks in part to an explosion in the presence of lake flies (or gnats). Excess humidity this year caused a boom in lake fly populations, which led to a subsequent and equally significant explosion in the spider population.
Greek biologist Fotis Pergantis, president of the Messolonghi National Lagoon Park, explained the phenomenon as such:
“It’s the simple prey-predator phenomenon,” Pergantis said. “It’s the ecosystem’s natural reactions and once the temperatures begin to drop and the gnat populations die out, the spider populations will decrease as well.”
In addition to Pergantis’ calm assertions that this is a simple prey-predator phenomenon, residents of the town are reportedly grateful for the new residents because the spiders are also responsible for a decrease in the local mosquito population…which leads me to suspect that I would be ill-suited for life in the Greek town of Aitoliko.
Source: AP photo/Giannis
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