At the Albanian-Greek border, the world’s largest spider web has been discovered

The world’s largest spider web is located in a sulfur cave, right on the Greek-Albanian border.

Deep inside a dark, sulfur-filled cave in Sarantaporo, at the border, researchers discovered the largest spider web in the world, housing more than 111,000 spiders.

Specifically, according to a study published on October 17 in the journal Subterranean Biology, the massive spider colony consists of a colossal web in a permanently dark zone of the cave.

The web stretches about 350 meters along the wall of a narrow, low tunnel near the cave entrance. Researchers observed that it is a mosaic of thousands of individual funnel-shaped webs. This is the first evidence of colonial behavior in two common spider species and is likely to represent the largest spider web in the world, said the study leader Istvan Urac, an associate professor of biology at Sapientia University in Romania.

“The natural world still holds countless surprises. If I tried to put into words all the emotions that overwhelmed me when I saw the web, I would describe them as awe, respect, and gratitude. You have to experience it to truly know what it’s like,” Urak told Live Science.

This spectacular spider city is located in the “Sulfur Cave,” a cave formed by sulfuric acid produced from the oxidation of hydrogen sulfide in groundwater.

Although researchers uncovered exciting new evidence about the spider colony in the cave, they were not the first to see the giant web.

Cavers from the Czech Speleological Association discovered it in 2022 during an expedition in the Bromoner Valley.

Additionally, a team of scientists visited the cave in 2024, collecting samples from the tissues that Urak analyzed before beginning his expedition in the Sulfur Cave.

“KORÇA BOOM”