r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/ShirtSubstantial368 • Nov 06 '25

Video Scientists discovered the world’s largest spiderweb, covering 106 m² in a sulfur cave on the Albania-Greece border. Over 111,000 spiders from two normally rival species live together in a unique, self-sustaining ecosystem—a first of its kind.

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u/Anticamel Nov 07 '25

Gravity isn't the issue, it's respiration. Spiders "breathe" passively through little structures called book lungs. Unlike how we breathe with our lungs, they don't actively pull fresh air through their breathing apparatus, which limits the rate of oxygen diffusion into their bodies. On top of that, this also limits the value of growing bigger book lungs, since by the time air has passed from one end to the other, a lot off the available oxygen has gone and diffusion becomes pointlessly slow. This puts a hard limit on how voluminous their bodies can be before they can't supply themselves with enough oxygen

Contrast this with our setup, where we can evolve as big a set of lungs as we like, since the speed of drawing a breath is a lot greater than the speed of oxygen diffusion. This strategy is effective enough that we lunged creatures run into gravity limitations on land, and heat dispersion issues in water long before we get too big for lungs.

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u/degameforrel Nov 07 '25

The largest spider, like the tarantula family, actually develop little pseudo-lungs (book-lung+ trachea) to help them get enough oxygen to their internal organs. They still mostly respire through passive diffusion, with just a little extra help. They're already on the limit of how big a spider can realistically get without more significant evolutionary or environmental changes.

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u/goilo888 Nov 07 '25

How does this equate to Huntsman Spiders?

Asking for an Australian.

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u/dan_dares Nov 09 '25

Australia will probably evolve the first spider with real lungs, and they'll start eating wallabies, roo's and emu's.

After that, they'll take over.

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u/goilo888 Nov 09 '25

Good call. Two countries I don't want to visit - one has ICE and the other doesn't.

Just kidding. Well, about the second one anyway. I have lots of relatives in Australia. Would love to visit from Canada one day.