This one is an academic paper - I suspect Jubal will find it interesting, while arachnophobes will not want to go anywhere near it.
It begins with these words:
In late October, 2009, the managers of the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant in Baltimore, MD sought assistance in mitigating what they described as an "extreme spider situation" in their sand filtration facility.Effectively, they had built a spider farm (covered, warm, lots of nooks and crannies, steady supply of food), and were experiencing a good breeding year. I won't present the numbers here, in case readers run away screaming, but they are quite remarkable. One of the concluding comments is this:
On-site personnel should be reassured that the spiders are harmless and the facility's immense shroud of silk should be presented in a positive light as a record-breaking natural history wonder.For those interested, the paper is linked from the current
xkcd "What If?" article.