Spiders blanket entire towns in Australia

Towns in Australia have been left blanketed in cobwebs after spiders fled from flooding.

Images and videos captured in the Gippsland region of Victoria show fields and homes in the area covered in spider silk.

The webs result from a phenomenon called 'ballooning', which involves spiders using strands of silk to ride on gusts of wind, with an expert saying the practice is more common than some may think.

Professor Dieter Hochuli, an ecologist at the University of Sydney, told 7News: "This is a surprisingly common phenomenon after floods.

"When we get these types of very heavy rains and flooding, these animals who spend their lives cryptically on the ground can't live there anymore, and do exactly what we try to do - they move to the higher ground." 

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