Gossamer spiders by the thousands have been fleeing their hidey holes — in a rather unusual way — to escape Gippsland's floodwaters.
As their underground lairs are inundated, gossamer spiders are taking to the air to escape Gippsland's floodwaters.Spiders, snakes, wombats, wallabies and livestock are searching for higher groundIn a process called "ballooning", the spiders throw fine webs into the wind, carrying them into the air to higher locations, often laying spectacular carpets of their webs over dryer ground.
Wellington Shire Councillor Carolyn Crossley, a "keen" birdwatcher, drove around the district to check for birds around the floodwaters. "There was this stunning landscape that was shrouded in this silken web, gossamer web, spread across the landscape by the very busy spiders that were escaping the rising [water]," Cr Crossley said.Sale insect-sprayer Dave Johnson said the spiders, like everything else the flood had affected, just wanted somewhere dry to live.
"They need somewhere to live. The water has inundated their home, so they need to go to higher ground," Mr Johnson said."We're on some flood plains where I live, and the frogs have been really chirpy which, for June, we don't hear that very often.""They will just sneak back and get absorbed back as the floodwaters go down," he said. "They don't like sitting on a web when they've been snug in a hole. It's not natural for them.
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