No big deal, it's just raining spiders in Australia

(Image credit: Ian Waldie/Getty Images)

published 15 May 2015

Millions of baby spiders appeared to be raining from the sky in the Southern Tablelands earlier this month, with one astonished local fearing the region had been "invaded by spiders" and another reporting his home was "covered" in the creatures.Goulburn resident Ian Watson said his house looked like it had been "abandoned and taken over by spiders.""The whole place was covered in these little black spiderlings and when I looked up at the sun it was like this tunnel of webs going up for a couple of hundred meters into the sky." [The Sydney Morning Herald]

Scientists say there are two possible explanations for the phenomenon: "ballooning," in which masses of baby spiders climb to the top of trees and float down in silk parachutes, and "snag lines," which are gossamer strands thrown up into the air to hoist the spiders out of waterlogged or flooded ground.