Natural wonder Spider cocoons in Sindh (Pakistan).

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Sindh_Coat_of_Arms_PKA girl walks past a tree covered in spider webs in the flood affected areas of K.N. Shah, located near Dadu in Pakistan's Sindh province.
The cocooned trees are a side-effect of spiders escaping flood waters in the area. Although people in this part of Sindh have never witnessed this phenomenon, they report there are now less mosquitoes, thus reducing the risk of malaria.

As if being devastated by monsoon floods weren't bad enough, it seems the people of disaster-laden Sindh, Pakistan (circa 2010) were also the recipients of a more surreal holocaust: SPIDER TREES.

Sindhi_Map_SAUK_RKThis has made the rounds on the mainstream interWEB I'm sure but it was too terrifying for me to resist.

The general consensus seems to be that the flood waters drove billions of spiders and other insects up into the trees where they then sealed them in ghostly cocoons.

The people of Sindh said they have seen nothing like it before yet apparently no formal scientific analysis was made.

National Geo sent photographers who insist that when you stood under these things lots of tiny, tiny spiders would fall on your head.

This has been heavily contested, many say that certain moth larvae or other silk spinning worm types are more likely to be blamed. But in the end does that really make this any less of a nightmare made flesh? Yet another relentless, overwhelming example of the wonder/terror that is the natural world.

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