Here’s One Greek Beach You Won’t Want to Visit for a While
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Beaches are for lovers… and not always just for human ones. Thousands upon thousands of tetragnatha extensa spiders have taken over a beach in a Greek town called Aitoliko and have laid filmy connected webs that envelop every square inch of the grassy shoreline.
Local photographer Giannis Giannakopoulos shared photographs of the ghoulish beachfront on his Facebook page.
The spiders are part of a genus known as stretch spiders, with elongated bodies and long legs, which allow them to scurry across the surface of water more quickly than they run on land. However, the spiders are harmless to humans beyond shock factor, according to molecular biologist Maria Chatzaki, who told Greek news sites that “these spiders are not dangerous for humans, and will not cause any damage.”
Aitoliko, about 186 miles from Athens, is located on an island connected to the mainland by two bridges, and Chatzaki said that a boom in mosquitoes in the region created the perfect environment for the leggy arachnids.
“The spiders are taking advantage of these conditions, and are having a kind of a party,” Chatzaki said. “They mate, they reproduce and provide a whole new generation.”
Aitoliko last saw a similar phenomenon in 2003, and Chatzaki said the spiders die off after mating, and their webs naturally disintegrate in a few short weeks, leaving the beach as pristine as before.
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