Massive Field of Cobwebs in Flooded New Zealand Town

Spiders fleeing flooding in New Zealand created a massive 30-metre spiderweb that shimmered in the light on Sunday, April 16.Tauranga resident Tracey Maris told Storyful that she saw the massive web on Sunday in the city’s suburb of Papamoa, which had seen flooding during Cyclone Cook.
She recounted her encounter with the giant web thusly:
“We were down below the newly made tsunami evacuation mound on our local football [soccer] field and there was a bright glistening coming from the top of the mound – it looked almost like the hill was sparkling but we were unsure why.
“So my 10-year-old daughter and I raced up to look and were shocked to learn it was all spider web. Kind of yuck, but really beautiful at the same time. I was amazed being up on top of the mound seeing how far it stretched for.
“It looked like it went from the top, stretching right through to the local college next door, which is around 30 metres away at a guess, and it was about 2-3 metres wide at the thickest area. We thought there were tiny little bugs trapped in there, but saw that they were actually thousands of little spiders.
“My husband and stepson came up at that stage as I screamed pretty loudly at my discovery. My stepson stood inside it and then had spiders crawling over him. The web was really sticky and clung to all of us. So I thought I would capture the moment and grab some photos and a video. The photos aren’t really clear as spiders clearly freak me out. A dog went running through the webs not long after and it started to break up.
“We googled similar events and found that it has happened before with spiders finding higher ground from flooding. As we had Cyclone Cook come through Thursday last week, I’m guessing they took shelter on top of this mound.
“We returned this morning [April 17] and the web has mainly all gone now as we had a big thunderstorm early this morning. So for me, it was being at the right place at the right time yesterday to see a phenomenon which is rarely seen.”
Canterbury Museum spider resident Cor Vink told the New Zealand Herald that spiders often created huge cobwebs after flooding as they sought out higher ground.
The phenomenon was observed in Northland in 2014 and in Tasmania in 2016. Credit: Tracey Maris via Storyful