Thursday, August 30, 2007

Spiders cover park with massive web

Spiders at a Texas State Park near Dallas have created a huge 200 foot long communal spider web is responsible for the death of millions of local insects.


'Fairyland' Spider Web Blankets Texas Park (ABC News)

Entomologists are debating the origin and rarity of a sprawling spider web that blankets several trees, shrubs and the ground along a 200-yard stretch of trail in a North Texas park. Officials at Lake Tawakoni State Park say the massive mosquito trap is a big attraction for some visitors, while others won't go anywhere near it.

"At first, it was so white it looked like fairyland," said Donna Garde, superintendent of the park about 45 miles east of Dallas. "Now it's filled with so many mosquitoes that it's turned a little brown. There are times you can literally hear the screech of millions of mosquitoes caught in those webs."

Now I don't want to be an alarmist, but this has happened before. In 1977, I saw a movie called Kingdom of the Spiders where William Shatner is a small town veterinarian who battles an army of rogue tarantulas that work together to kill everything in their path. SPOILER ALERT - (If you haven't seen this screen gem, then stop reading now and add it you your Netflix queue!) - As the movie ends, Shatner and his friends have barricaded themselves in a rustic lodge in an effort to keep the evil spiders at bay. Meanwhile, the rest of the town is in ruins. Every man, woman and child has been killed and the entire town is encased in a huge spider web. It is only a matter of time until Shatner and the rest of the country become spider food.

If Shatner can't kill an army of rogue spiders, then what hope does the rest of humanity have?

I suspect that the governement has been aware of this threat for quite a while. The feds want you to have duct tape and plastic sheeting on hand to make an emergency shelter to protect yourself from the spiders, not a terrorist chemical attack.
Are you ready?

UPDATE: I have located a clip of Kingdom of the Spiders on YouTube. Here is the best scene...

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