Arachnophobia - the Giant Spiderweb

Water treatment plant completely overrun by millions of spiders

Terror ... This giant spiderweb covered about 95 per cent of this building. Picture: Entomological Society of America Source: Supplied

ARACHNOPHOBES need not apply for a job at this water treatment plant – where most of the building is blanketed by a giant spider web.

The skin-crawling lair was originally reported by workers of the Baltimore Wastewater Treatment Plant in the US to pest controllers in 2009, and the photos are only now going viral thanks to a terrifying Halloween story on Wired.

Experts believe there are about 35,176 spiders in every square metre of the shed.

Web of horror ... The wed was the size of 4 football fields. Picture: Entomological Society of America Source: Supplied

The original source is a paper from Albert Greene called, An Immense Concentration of Orb-Weaving Spiders With Communal Webbing in a Man-Made Structural Habitat.
“We were unprepared for the sheer scale of the spider population and the extraordinary masses of both three dimensional and sheet-like webbing that blanketed much of the facility’s cavernous interior,” it said.

Infestation ... Experts believe there were over 107 million spiders in the building. Picture: Entomological Society of America Source: Supplied

“Far greater in magnitude than any previously recorded aggregation of orb-weavers, the visual impact of the spectacle was nothing less than astonishing.
“In places where the plant workers had swept aside the webbing to access equipment, the silk lay piled on the floor in rope-like clumps as thick as a fire hose.”
The spider responsible for the web, covering the size of 4 football grounds, is believed to be the long-jawed orb weaver, or Tetragnathidae.
Pest controllers removed the mess and the plant still operates today.
Yuck.

Covered ... Over 95 per cent of the water treatment plant was smothered in spider web. Picture: Entomological Society of America Source: Supplied