January 5, 2026
Eight legs, zero chill
A spider web unlike any seen before (2025)
111,000 spiders share a cave ‘home’ and the internet is freaking out
TLDR: Scientists found a small-home-sized web in a sulfur cave on the Albania–Greece border where 111,000 spiders from two species live together, likely because darkness stops hunting. Comments clashed between awe and horror, debating if spiders could turn social and what feeds them—answer: millions of midges.
Scientists stumbled into a real-life nightmare—or nature’s flex—inside a sulfur-soaked cave on the Albania–Greece border: a shimmering, small-home-sized spider web housing an estimated 111,000 arachnids. The comments immediately split into two tribes: the spellbound and the “NOPE.” One camp kept dropping Middle-earth memes—“That’s just Shelob’s nest,” joked one user—while another confessed to jump scares, like apricot13 who thought a video clip was a spider sprinting up their arm. Peak chaos energy, peak internet.
Under the drama, good questions bubbled up. Lio asked the big one: what’s feeding this city of spiders deep underground? Answer: a nonstop buffet of more than 2.4 million midges flying into silk. The shocker is coexistence—two species that normally prey on each other are living side by side, likely because it’s pitch-black and they can’t see to attack. Some wondered if this could make “super solitary” spiders go social. Others pointed to the study’s caveats: a biologist suggested the web size might be overestimated since older, unused web layers were counted. Meanwhile, link wars broke out over sources, from LiveScience to an archive, because of course they did. Love it or fear it, the cave’s warm, stinky, hard-to-reach world looks like a sealed-off spider metropolis—and the comments can’t look away.
Key Points
- •A spider web estimated at about 1,140 sq ft was documented in Sulfur Cave on the Albania–Greece border.
- •Researchers counted roughly 111,000 spiders, including 69,000 barn funnel weavers and 42,000 Prinerigone vagans, coexisting despite typical predation.
- •Darkness is hypothesized to reduce visual detection, enabling reduced predation and coexistence between the two solitary species.
- •The cave’s harsh, hydrogen sulfide-rich environment (about 80°F) and abundant prey (over 2.4 million midges) support the large population.
- •The study, published in Subterranean Biology, notes possible overestimation of web area and reports genetic differences suggesting adaptation.