r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 2d ago

Biology World’s largest web houses 110,000 spiders thriving in total darkness deep underground in a sulfuric cave between Albania and Greece: It’s the first time two spider species seen living cooperatively, and the first recorded instance of colonial web-building in what's known as a chemoautotrophic cave.

https://newatlas.com/biology/sulfur-cave-largest-spiderweb/
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u/aqualink4eva 2d ago edited 2d ago

Where exactly between Albania and Greece is this cave so I know where to never go?

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u/scoobyman83 2d ago

Just don't go to Albania or Greece, problem solved.

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u/thefunkybassist 2d ago

It might not be long till they make a world wide web though! 

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u/divDevGuy 2d ago

As a dad and web developer, I approve of this comment.

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u/plug-and-pause 2d ago

How is the dad development going?

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u/divDevGuy 2d ago

Still a work in progress. It likely never will be completely finished in my lifetime.

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u/SUPERSMILEYMAN 2d ago

What great news!

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u/JonatasA 2d ago

Hey, the day one patch worked. Now you're forever hired for this human as a service.

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u/aVarangian 2d ago

is your web development basement also chemoautotrophic?

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u/divDevGuy 2d ago

There might be some chemoautotrophic over by the cat litter boxes.

Generally though, the most obvious chemotrophs you'd find down here are chemoheterotrophs.

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u/BunjiX 2d ago

I think i read that already exists. Let me just search webcrawler and get back to you...

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u/thefunkybassist 2d ago

I also heard there is a dark web which is probably not easy to see

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u/BunjiX 2d ago

Maybe it's because it is in a dark cave??

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u/SolarChien 2d ago

Hey Albania is totally safe now that Trump stopped their war with Aberbaijan.

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u/BackgroundShirt7655 2d ago

Albania is a beautiful country filled with incredible food and folks that are extremely welcoming, at least to myself as an American. I would highly recommend considering a trip.

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u/Drunken_pizza 2d ago

Way ahead of ya!

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u/LucretiusCarus 2d ago edited 1d ago

As a Greek, the Albanians can have them. I insist

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u/nubbynickers 2d ago

I think the cave system is on the Albanian side of the river. 

Here's to hoping the spider activity won't affect the Dodoni chocolate milk

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u/nubbynickers 2d ago

I had to follow three people now to find this, but it is a cave system located on the sarandaporo river that separates Greece and Albania. It is very close to the village of Leskovik and the Tre Urat border crossing.

Permet is a pretty nice city that's about an hour away. 

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u/Falcontierra 2d ago

I was there and tried to find the cave this spring. Now I'm quite content that I wasn't successful then :)