Hundreds of creepy tiny spiders caught on video in back garden
IT’S an arachnophobes’s worst nightmare - hundreds of tiny spiders clustered together in a giant web.
But that’s just what Burbage resident Susan Stringer came across in her back garden on Featherston Drive.
Posting a video of the bright yellow arachnids, she said hundreds of tiny creatures were clustered on a bin, only then to be joined by a miniscule red spider.
The eight-legged army are baby cross orbweavers - Araneus diadematus - and are a fairly common sight at this time of year.
Female cross orbweavers, also called Garden Spiders lay their eggs in clusters of hundreds during the autumn, covering them in webbing, pieces of leftover food and other detritus.
They are then left to incubate over the winter months before hatching when warmer weather arrives in June.
The babies cluster together for a short period until big enough to wander off alone to make their way in the world.
However, if disturbed, the tiny arachnids scatter in an explosion, clinging on to woven ‘safety lines’.
Once any danger has passed, they all come back together into a cluster.
According to the British Arachnological Society, the garden spider is one of the largest in the UK and spins complex webs across shrubs, paths and even doorways.
Adult female grow to 15mm (body length), and males to nine millimetres.
They are commonly seen between June and Novemberat which point the females have laid and covered their eggs before being killed in the first winter frosts.