{"id":397907,"date":"2026-04-26T02:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T02:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/397907\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T02:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T02:31:09","slug":"web-over-waikato-spider-expert-explains-massive-spiderweb-blankets-seen-in-huntly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/397907\/","title":{"rendered":"Web over Waikato: Spider expert explains massive spiderweb blankets seen in Huntly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"npuzLaxKHxgCDhG\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThought they\u2019d be interesting because people in the city don\u2019t get them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"npuzLaxKHxgCDhG\" style=\"display:none\">Spider ballooning season typically occurs in New Zealand from March to May, with some activity stretching into early winter. <\/p>\n<p class=\"npuzLaxKHxgCDhG\" style=\"display:none\">This phenomenon involves millions of young spiderlings releasing silk threads to catch wind currents, often covering fields, fences, and trees in blankets of white, gossamer silk.<\/p>\n<p class=\"npuzLaxKHxgCDhG\" style=\"display:none\">Canterbury University spider expert Dr Fiona Cross &#8211; known as Dr Spider &#8211; said the recent wet weather was likely behind last night\u2019s spider ballooning.<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"Spider expert Dr Fiona Cross of Canterbury University.\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>Spider expert Dr Fiona Cross of Canterbury University.<\/p>\n<p class=\"npuzLaxKHxgCDhG\" style=\"display:none\">She said thousands of adolescent spiders would have contributed to dispersing that much silk across vast areas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"npuzLaxKHxgCDhG\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThe pictures are just so beautiful,\u201d Cross said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"npuzLaxKHxgCDhG\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cSeeing all that beautiful silk and you see all the glistening; it is absolutely stunning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"npuzLaxKHxgCDhG\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThousands of spiders would have been involved.<\/p>\n<p class=\"npuzLaxKHxgCDhG\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThese are young spiders dispersing the silk from their abdomens before they look for a new place to live.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"Thousands of spiders dispersed their silk, covering the grounds in Huntly.\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>Thousands of spiders dispersed their silk, covering the grounds in Huntly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"npuzLaxKHxgCDhG\" style=\"display:none\">Cross said spider ballooning was seasonal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"npuzLaxKHxgCDhG\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWhen the air currents and the electrical currents are just right, the spiders release their silk soaring into the air, and that can be dispersed a long way,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"npuzLaxKHxgCDhG\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cOne Australian spider is said to be able to balloon its silk across the Tasman.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"npuzLaxKHxgCDhG\" style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/the-daily-h-your-fast-smart-guide-to-the-days-biggest-headlines\/VQR5CULLQRECZP2ORSWPGDORBU\/?utm_source=nzherald&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_id=nz_cta\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/the-daily-h-your-fast-smart-guide-to-the-days-biggest-headlines\/VQR5CULLQRECZP2ORSWPGDORBU\/?utm_source=nzherald&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_id=nz_cta\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up for The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThought they\u2019d be interesting because people in the city don\u2019t get them.\u201d Spider ballooning season typically occurs in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3378,50750,18092,74059,4189,2842,1601,37119,305,6655,78,15399,5978,111,43,139,69,1523,7812,30127,205530,20110,210,2951,36199,21732,1524,1251,205531,1316,1354],"class_list":["post-397907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-appeared","tag-blankets","tag-countryside","tag-covered","tag-driving","tag-experienced","tag-expert","tag-explains","tag-have","tag-huntly","tag-in","tag-massive","tag-might","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-seen","tag-spider","tag-spiderweb","tag-thought","tag-through","tag-town","tag-tunnel","tag-vision","tag-waikato","tag-web","tag-webs","tag-when","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}