Raining spiders in Australia

Millions of spiders rained from the sky in Australia's Southern Tablelands, literally covering homes with webs as the arachnids invaded. The photo above shows a paddock strewn with webs in Albury, New South Wales.

"The whole place was covered in these little black spiderlings and when I looked up at the sun it was like this tunnel of webs going up for a couple of hundred metres into the sky," said Goulburn resident Ian Watson.

Apparently, the spiders were migrating by "ballooning," carried through the sky on parachutes of silk webbing.

"Raining spiders in Goulburn? Entirely possible, scientist says" (Sydney Morning Herald)

photo above by Keith Basterfield