LAHORE – Millions of spiders have crawled into trees in the flood-hit areas to escape flood waters, shrouding them with their silky webs, according to a report in Daily Mail. The eye-catching phenomenon is an unexpected side-effect of last year’s flooding which claimed the lives of almost 2,000 people. However, since the monsoon weather devastated the nation last July, much of the water has still not yet receded. The tiny arachnids have sought refuge amongst the trees weaving beautifully intricate webs between the leaves.
The branches are now so cocooned in spiders’ webs it gives the appearance of them being shrouded in a large net. People near Karachi, have never seen this phenomenon before, but locals are reporting that there are now fewer mosquitoes than they would expect, given the amount of stagnant, standing water that is around.
It is thought that the mosquitoes are getting caught in the spiders web and reducing the risk of malaria, benefiting local people. The 2010 floods began in last July following heavy monsoon rains in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan regions. About one-fifth of the country’s total land area was underwater, affecting about 20 million people whose homes, livelihoods and infrastructure was destroyed.
The ‘ghost trees’ of flood-hit areas
