World News for Students of English

24-06-2021 07:00

Following severe flooding in the region, southeastern Australia has been blanketed in horror-movie-evoking spiderwebs.

The webs appeared following huge rainfall and powerful winds that lashed the area since Wednesday last week, resulting in several deaths and forcing thousands to evacuate their homes.

Despite their creepy appearance, the spiders are actually harmless Ambicodamus crinitus, also known as Red and Black Spider. They created the huge silk tenements upon retreating to higher ground, so they could escape the storms.

Spiders can make a wide range of different silks, and this very thin little silk is used fly away with the breeze. When the animals find a suitable landing spot, they use their tiny parasails to hold onto the tops of the vegetation which they then quickly climb up.

Difficult words: evoke (to give or make an idea), tenement (a large building divided into apartments), parasail (an open parachute that glides through the air).

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