{"id":327207,"date":"2025-12-05T14:56:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T14:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/327207\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T14:56:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T14:56:12","slug":"spider-megacity-found-inside-sulfur-cave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/327207\/","title":{"rendered":"“Spider Megacity” Found Inside Sulfur Cave"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" Istv\u00e1n Ur\u00e1k led an expedition to study the spider web in detail (Credit: Urak et al. 2025\/ CC-BY-4.0\/ Subterranean Biology) <\/p>\n

Researchers have found the largest spider web ever recorded inside a sulfur-rich cave along the Greece\u2013Albania border. The “spider megacity” covers an astounding 1,140\u202fsq\u202fft (105\u202fsq\u202fm). This is about the size of a small apartment. This remarkable discovery was revealed by biologist Istv\u00e1n Ur\u00e1k and his team on October 17, 2025.<\/p>\n

A group from the Czech Speleological Society \u2014 an organization dedicated to the study and exploration of caves \u2014 first stumbled upon the site in 2022. Recognizing its unusual size, they alerted scientists. The scientists visited the cave in 2024 and collected specimens from the web. These spiders were later analyzed by Ur\u00e1k. He later organized his own expedition to what is now called Sulfur Cave to study the web and its inhabitants in greater detail.<\/p>\n

“You have to experience it to truly know what it feels like,” Ur\u00e1k said. <\/p>\n

\"\" A barn funnel weaver also called a common house spider (Credit: Urak et al. 2025\/ CC-BY-4.0\/ Subterranean Biology) <\/p>\n

A closer examination revealed that the web is home to around 111,000 spiders. They belong to two different species. About 69,000 are barn funnel weaver spiders also known as common house spiders. Measuring about 12 mm long, they typically build funnel-shaped webs in dark spaces such as attics or basements.<\/p>\n

The remainder are a much smaller species called Prinerigone vagans. They are usually 1.7 to 3 mm long. In Sulfur Cave, these spiders do not build webs of their own. Instead, they live on the larger spiders\u2019 webs and ambush passing insects. These two species do not normally live together. However, they are able to coexist in this cave. That is because the larger spiders cannot see the smaller ones, which barely move in the pitch-black environment.<\/p>\n

\"\" The spiders eat midges and other small insects (Credit: Urak et al. 2025\/ CC-BY-4.0\/ Subterranean Biology) <\/p>\n

The scientists believe Sulfur Cave provides an ideal environment for this giant web. It is dark, quiet, and protected from the outside world. Hence, the spiders face few predators or disturbances. The cave\u2019s walls are covered with sulfur-eating bacteria, which support large populations of midges and other small insects. This steady supply of prey lets the tens of thousands of spiders live together without competing for food.<\/p>\n

Ur\u00e1k and his team plan to continue studying the cave to learn more about its ecosystem and massive spider colony. They also want to study the spiders’ genes to understand how they survive in the harsh, sulfur-rich environment.<\/p>\n

“We’re just beginning to understand how extraordinary this ecosystem really is \u2014 and there\u2019s so much more to uncover,” Ur\u00e1k said.<\/p>\n

Resources: Livescience.com, Smithsonianmag.com, nbcnews.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Istv\u00e1n Ur\u00e1k led an expedition to study the spider web in detail (Credit: Urak et al. 2025\/ CC-BY-4.0\/…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[76,353,49,48,2770,17121,86416,6717,86417,5377,86414,86415,2523,1784,66,1785,323],"class_list":["post-327207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-arts","tag-books","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-children","tag-current-events","tag-ela","tag-english","tag-english-language-arts","tag-kids","tag-kids-news","tag-kids-news-articles","tag-language","tag-reading","tag-science","tag-students","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}