Lewes Forum thread

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Gossamer

On 18 Nov 2012 at 8:30pm Dave wrote:

Just walked over to Glynde and all the fields up there are covered in what looks like spiders web. It was most visible about an hour before sunset. I have never seen anything like it.

Is this usual

On 19 Nov 2012 at 11:51am Castle Gate wrote:

This is an occasional sight in temperate zones after a few warm days in late autumn or early spring, when the sun is low in the sky, and the evening is cold enough for the dew to form on the grass. The spiders are enticed from the ground by the warmer weather, and their normally invisible silk threads become more visible because of the condensation that forms on them; and that is what you observed.

I saw the very same thing yesterday on the sports fields beside Lewes Priory, and also once on a football field in Worcestershire in 1978: millions of spiders were drifting on their dragline silk across the land. In most cases, the threads, naturally, appear aligned with the prevailing wind.

A single acre of grassland could contain up to two million tiny spiders; but the web has evolved to be invisible except under unusual light.

Meanwhile, here is a set of pictures showing a remarkable piece of cloth, woven from spiders' silk.

Check it out here »

On 19 Nov 2012 at 2:08pm Southover Queen wrote:

How lovely, Dave: lucky you.

I was out on Seaford Head yesterday, and we noticed hundreds of tiny little spiders floating on the breeze, trailing strands of web behind them. Just as Castle Gate describes, in fact.