There is an annual event occurring throughout Ohio at the current time that some may find disturbing, and others may find truly fascinating. This event is the autumnal migration of spiders and spiderlings. The migration may involve a few hundred individuals or thousands of individuals. What may draw a person’s attention to the migration usually isn’t the spiders but rather their means of migration, ballooning on long silk threads sometimes referred to as gossamer threads or wings. In some cases, multiple threads of silk come together and produce a very visible wad of silk that floats through the air or becomes tangled on overhead wires or tree limbs.
If one is outdoors early in the morning as the sun is rising or late in the afternoon when the sun is setting, the low angles of the sun’s rays may reflect off the silken threats laying over turfgrass, thousands of threads producing a sheer blanket on top of the grass as well as other objects. I have seen this phenomenon across lawns and athletic fields alike. Sometimes the thread blanket will slightly billow up when crossed by a lite breeze. Rest assured there is no threat to life or limb, pets, children, landscape plants or other possessions. Nothing needs to be done to stop the migration, and wind and weather will eventually remove the silken threads.
There are numerous spider species that will migrate in this fashion. Common species in Ohio that contribute to this event are the thin-legged wolf spiders, Pardosa spp.
The following images show the results of the ballooning spider migration in NW Ohio.
