[flagged]
Your comment is "human slop". Don't become the problem you're complaining about.
The article includes a link to the original paper: https://subtbiol.pensoft.net/article/162344/
A spider web unlike any seen before
51–60 of 156 posts
Re: A spider web unlike any seen before
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the article: > The vast spider population is attributed to an abundant food supply: more than 2.4 million midges in the cave, ready to be entangled in the intricate web. ...although I guess the question then is what sustains the millions of midges!
From the livescience article linked by another poster: biofilm produced by sulfur-eating bacteria, which in turn metabolize sulfur from the sulfur-rich stream in the cave. So the whole food-chain here is: sulfur -> bacteria -> midges -> spiders.
Seems like a great place for spider-eating frogs to move into.
Re: A spider web unlike any seen before
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah same, we do not bother spiders in the house unless they jump into bed or on food or whatever, and then we just take them outside. With spiders and cats in the house we never see any flies or other insects.
I have a rule with the spiders where if they get too bold they get the vacuum. I don't mind them lurking in the corners but I don't want them crawling across my desk. I think most of them understand the arrangement by now. Only occasional enforcement is necessary.
glass and piece of card, come on!
Re: A spider web unlike any seen before
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the livescience article linked by another poster: biofilm produced by sulfur-eating bacteria, which in turn metabolize sulfur from the sulfur-rich stream in the cave. So the whole food-chain here is: sulfur -> bacteria -> midges -> spiders.
Seems like a great place for spider-eating frogs to move into.
> The environment, too, is unusually protected. The cave is hard to reach and is filled with foul-smelling hydrogen sulfide gas, in concentrations too great for most animals to live there.
Re: A spider web unlike any seen before
#55The earth is full of wonders but we're destroying most of them.
Not "we", it's the billionaires.
It's odd, in a way — when you have a well-paying job, you have nothing from an accounting viewpoint and the owners of the organisation have a valuable asset. The skill that you contribute to the organisation is accounted for as a financial asset belonging to someone else. There are good reasons for that, the accounting viewpoint makes sense for accounting purposes.
In everyday parlance we say that you have a job and you have the skill, and in reality you actually are free to take your skill elsewhere. Your skill plays a part in the market value of your employer, but you stay or leave at your whim, the "owner" of the "asset" doesn't decide.
Those billions are IMO mostly an accounting fiction — it's better to think of it in the way that our ordinary language suggests, where your actions are yours, your skills are yours, etc. If you drive to work, that's your emissions based on your choice, it's not a choice made by someone whose great wealth is mostly an assessment of your skill and earning power.
If you build a house and need some concrete for that, CO₂ is emitted in a concrete factory, but I think it's better to regard the emitted CO₂ as a choice made by you than as emissions by the billionaire who owns the factory. Even if the accountants assess the value of the factory as a large number.
Re: A spider web unlike any seen before
#56> The team of scientists discovered that 69,000 Tegenaria domestica , known as the barn funnel weaver, were living with about 42,000 Prinerigone vagans , which inhabit wet places. Usually the barn funnel weavers prey on P. vagans , which are smaller. > “But in the cave, because it’s dark in there, our hypothesis was that they do not see each other,” Blerina Vrenozi, a biologist, zoologist and ecologist at the Univers…
Maybe the glut of conventional food leaves the prospect of eating their compatriots less appetizing.
Re: A spider web unlike any seen before
#57The earth is full of wonders but we're destroying most of them.
Not "we", it's the billionaires.
No, the average US citizen destroys the planet. They would too if the economy was owned by large corporations owned by the state. Which is almost the same now that the country is run by oligarchs.
Re: A spider web unlike any seen before
#58"The cave is full of hydrogen sulphide gas in too high concentrations for most animals to survive" Over a shot of a bunch of people walking around with no masks on?
Read a bit further, the very next sentence??? > “All you could smell was sulfur hydrogen, and you cannot breathe,” Dr. Vrenozi said, recalling that most of the researchers were wearing masks. But as they descended deeper into the cave, she said that “you get used to the smell of spoiled eggs.” Also, you use "" but you are not quoting, the text inside your quotes does not exist in the article. The actual quote would b…
I was quoting the caption in one of the images at the top, not the article itself
Re: A spider web unlike any seen before
#59OMG, thats look so terrifying and amazing at the same time