You Won't Believe What Is Making These Bizarre Webs In The Amazon
Tambopata Research Center/Troy Alexander
Images of these towers went viral back in August of 2013, and many suspected it was made by a spider - since it was spun out of silk - but no one knew which spider, or what the weird webs were for.
Phil Torres from the Tambopata Research Center, Lary Reeves and Geena Hill from the University of Florida, and wildlife photographer Jeff Cremer from Perunature.com trekked deep into the Peruvian Amazon to study the structures and attempt to identify what was creating them.
They were accompanied by science journalist Nadia Drake, who documented their trek on the Wired Science blog.
The team located about 45 of the web towers and observed and dissected some of them, but their results were inconclusive. The scientists began to think the structures might be just a tower of sperm designed to entice and fertilize female spiders.
On the last day of the trip, though, one of the strange structures hatched, and a baby spider emerged. You can see what the teeny tiny baby mystery spider below:
Perunature.com/Jeff Cremer
Perunature.com/Jeff Cremer
Instead, the scientists believe that the sticky fence surrounding the web towers might be a way to ensnare mites as food for the newly hatched spiders or a defense mechanism to protect the spider egg from ants or other tiny predators.
You can see how the thin strands of web create a perimeter around the center tower containing the egg in the image below.
Perunature.com/Troy Alexander
See more from Drake about solving the mystery web-tower riddle >
- I'm an interior designer. Here are 10 things in your living room you should get rid of.
- Higher-paid employees looking for work are having a tough time, and it could be a sign of a shift in the workplace
- A software engineer shares the résumé he's used since college that got him a $500,000 job at Meta — plus offers at TikTok and LinkedIn
- 7 scenic Indian villages perfect for May escapes
- Paneer snacks you can prepare in 30 minutes
- Markets crash: Investors' wealth erodes by ₹2.25 lakh crore
- Stay healthy and hydrated: 10 immunity-boosting fruit-based lemonades
- Here’s what you can do to recover after eating oily food