The people of the Sindh region of Pakistan aren’t the only ones who have been forced to seek higher ground. With more than a fifth of the country submerged, millions of spiders climbed into the trees to spin their webs.
The result is a beautiful, if not also a little creepy, collection of cocooned trees.
The good news: The spiders may be reducing the spread of malaria. According to Wired and the DFID, the spiders’ massive webs are likely capturing malaria-spreading mosquitos, thus preventing the disease from spreading.
This is a real blessing for the people of Sindh, who are facing so many other hardships after the floods. With all that standing water, an outburst of malaria had been a very real concern.
There are plenty of pictures of the alien-looking landscape at National Geographic, and DFID’s flickr.