{"id":127211,"date":"2025-11-07T17:47:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T17:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/127211\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T17:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T17:47:08","slug":"web-home-to-more-than-110000-spiders-discovered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/127211\/","title":{"rendered":"Web home to more than 110,000 spiders discovered"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers have discovered what could be the largest spider web ever found, according to a paper published last month.<\/p>\n<p>An international team of cave explorers and scientists first found the arachnid &#8216;supercity&#8217; in 2022 in Sulfur Cave, straddling the Greek\u2013Albanian border.<\/p>\n<p>After years of studies, the researchers estimate the more than 100sq\/m web is home to around 110,000 spiders.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Spider reuters\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/00237211-614.jpg\"\/><br \/><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Spider reuters\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/00237213-614.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The web is home to two different species, each genetically distinct from their relatives on the surface.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers also say it&#8217;s the first time these usually solitary spiders have been seen forming colonies, a finding the team describes as &#8220;extraordinary.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Researchers reckon the reason for the Sulfur Cave&#8217;s popularity with spiders is the huge number of midges that also dwell in its depths, offering a plentiful food source for the arachnids.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Researchers have discovered what could be the largest spider web ever found, according to a paper published last&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,82,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-127211","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}