Makut negairuut, Nunapicuarmi negat amllerluteng, Spider webs cover vast area

The spiders are usually in multiple form in most areas, but it has not been witnessed in this form. This is described as a spider "ballooning" event, the term used when spiders launch themselves in to the air. These events might be happening more frequently as warming Arctic temperatures has been associated with increases in the population of some spider species such as the wolf spider (see Spider Baby Boom in Warming Arctic), and spiders moving further north and also having more then one hatch per season.

Theodora Nicholai from Nunapitchuk Tribe shared this observation in Yupik:

Makut negairuut, Nunapicuarmi negat amllerluteng. Amlletuyaaqellriit taugaam waten pitarrluki alaiqsaitut ciungani. Makut kiagmi alaillruut Kaugutem nuniini.

These are spiders in Nunapitchuk, spider webs concentrated in a vast area. The spiders are usually in multiple form in most areas, but it has not been witnessed in this form.

Comments from LEO Editors:

Thank you Theodora for sharing this really interesting observation. There are about a dozen posts from Alaska in LEO Network about "arachnids" or rather the Arachnida a class of joint-legged invertebrate animals that also include spiders, scorpions, ticks, mites, among others. There have been no scorpion posts yet in LEO, but ticks are on the rise and we even received on mite post, photographed on a dog dish in Nome. Of the spider posts, most are about unusual spiders, or ones reported at strange times of year, like in winter. But there are also two other remarkable spider web posts, one by See similar observations of "ballooning" from St. Paul Island and Noatak, from 2019 and 2010 respectively. In the St. Paul post Lauren Divine from St. Paul Island in 2019, and the other one which I observed and posted near the mouth of the Noatak River in 2010. Like in Nunapitchuk, in all of these posts, the area is completely blanked in spider web. Also in all three posts, the event occurred in September: on the 21st of September in the Noatak in 2010, on the 9th of September in St. Paul in 2019, and here in Nunapitchuk, on September 20, 2022.

In the St. Paul post we reached out to Derek Sikes, Curator of Insects at the University of Alaska Museum. Derek reached out to spider expert Joey Slowik for his opinion. He described it as a mass "ballooning" event. "Ballooning" is the term used when spiders launch themselves in to the air using Earth's magnetic charge. These events might be happening more frequently as warming Arctic temperatures has been associated with increases in the population of some spider species such as the wolf spider (see Spider Baby Boom in Warming Arctic), and spiders moving further north and also having more then one hatch per season. The ballooning event is likely an indication that there was a hatch of spiders looking to move to a new area, and just the right wind conditions for them to sail. For more on spider ballooning events see the attached YouTube video. M.Brubaker