Rather than raining cats and dogs in Australia, it is raining spiders— literally.
"Millions" of baby spiders came down from the sky in the Southern Tablelands, an area of New South Wales, in the beginning of May, The Sydney Morning Herald reports. Residents of the region told the newspaper that the land is "covered" by the creatures and has been "invaded by spiders."
Ian Watson, who lives in Goulburn, which is located near the country's eastern coast, said that although the spiders and the webs they are leaving behind is "beautiful," the whole situation is annoying... especially because he has a beard.
"...I was annoyed because ... you couldn't go out without getting spider webs on you," he told the Sydney Morning Herald. "And I've got a beard as well, so they kept getting in my beard."
Watson described the scene near his home as a "tunnel of webs" connecting to the sky.
"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 meters into the sky," he said.
Scientifically, there is an explanation for the phenomena, which Naturalist Martyn Robinson said is called "ballooning," he told The Sunday Morning Herald:
"The spider climbs to the top of vegetation and releases a streamer of silk that catches on the breeze and carries the spider aloft.
"Spiders have been caught flying like this up to three kilometres above the ground, Robinson said."
The silk, which Robinson referred to as "gossamer," is more commonly known as Angel Hair among spider enthusiasts. The most common time ballooning results in Angel Hair is following heavy raining and flooding.
"They can literally travel for kilometres," Robinson said of spiders, thanks to the strength of gossamer."...Which is why every continent has spiders. Even in Antarctica they regularly turn up but just die."
According to Robinson, the "silk roads" will be gone as soon as the weather gets warmer.
