Trees cocooned in spiders webs, an unexpected side effect of the flooding in Sindh, Pakistan

SAY WHAT YOU WANT, THERE IS SOME PRETTY WEIRD STUFF HAPPENING EVERYWHERE

An unexpected side-effect of the flooding in parts of Pakistan has been that millions of spiders climbed up into the trees to escape the rising flood waters.

Because of the scale of the flooding and the fact that the water has taken so long to recede, many trees have become cocooned in spiders webs. People in this part of Sindh have never seen this phenomenon before - but they also report that there are now less mosquitoes than they would expect, given the amount of stagnant, standing water that is around.

It is thought that the mosquitoes are getting caught in the spiders web thus reducing the risk of malaria, which would be one blessing for the people of Sindh, facing so many other hardships after the floods.

Of course, the trees don’t like it much and will die from light deprivation. So where does that leave the spiders? ….Dead, that is where they will be; then there will be more mosquitoes and more malaria.

Sure, you climate change deniers are going to say: “That is just an isolated incident” but dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions of isolated incidents make up the body of very convincing evidence.

Then climate change deniers will say: "Look at all the snow falling...it is not getting warmer...it is getting colder...we have never had this much snow before"

Spider webs are incredible! Spider web material is about one-tenth the diameter of a human hair, but it has incredible strength. In fact it is ten times stronger than a steel strand of the same weight.

The dragline silk which makes up the spokes of the spider’s web is an amazing chemical design. Two proteins are used in these strands. Each protein contains three regions with distinct properties. The first takes a form that is called amorphous. An amorphous material is a plastic material like bubble gum that is stretchable. This is what gives the spider’s web its huge elasticity so when the spider’s prey hits the web, it stretches and does not break. Embedded in the amorphous material are two kinds of crystalline material. These crystalline materials toughen the web. They are tightly pleated and resist stretching, but only one of them is truly rigid. The pleats of the less rigid material anchor the rigid crystals to the matrix producing massive strength.

And yet, it is said that some of the webs on the trees have clumps of web with mosquitoes on them fall to the ground. Such is the amount of accumulation of those insects that it overwhelms even the web filaments themselves; and those are pretty strong it would be the equivalent of pulling a 20,000 locomotive with dental floss. And do you know how many mosquitoes it takes to make one pound?