World's Largest Spiderweb Discovered in Cave, and Scientists Are Amazed

Scientists working in an underground cavern between Greece and Albania have discovered the world’s largest spider web, according to a report in Subterranean Biology, and it's still crawling with various species.

The web was discovered within Sulfur Cave. It runs for 1,076.4 square feet along the wall of the cave and is home to an estimated 110,000 spiders. Roughly 69,000 Tegenaria domestica spiders and 42,000 Prinerigone vagan spiders are currently living on the web. It’s the “first documented case of colonial web formation in these species,” according to the report.

“Molecular data confirmed the identity of the two spider species and revealed that their populations in Sulfur Cave are genetically distinct from other populations,” the report explained. “Regarding T. Domestica, we found a seasonal pattern in fecundity, with significantly larger egg clutches in early summer.”

Cave Is Home to At Least 512 Species

Sulfur Cave has proved a particularly abundant source of life for numerous spider species. There are 512 other species which hail from 20 different families, researchers found, all of which have been provided with the nutrients they need from the cave. The web was first discovered in 2022 by the Czech Speleological Society, but has only recently been examined.

“It is a unique case of two species cohabiting within the same web structure in this huge number: approximately 69,000 Tegenaria domestica coexist with about 42,000 Prinerigone vagans on this single large web,” researcher István Urák, of the Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania in Romania, who analyzed the web last year, told Metro. “Admiration for nature’s ingenuity, capable of creating such a masterpiece by spiders not known for their social cooperation; respect for the magnitude and wisdom of the forces that shape it; and gratitude for having had the opportunity to see and even touch it firsthand.”