Officials at Lake Tawakoni State Park say the sprawling spider web is a big attraction for some visitors, while others will not go anywhere near it.
Now entomologists are debating the origin and rarity of the web that blankets several trees, shrubs and the ground along a 200-yard (182-metre) stretch of
trail in a North Texas park.
At first, it was so white it looked like fairyland," said Donna Garde, superintendent of the park about 45 miles (72 kilometres) east of Dallas.
"Now it's filled with so many mosquitoes that it's turned a little brown. There are times you can literally hear the screech of millions of mosquitoes caught in those webs."
Spider experts say the web may have been constructed by social cobweb spiders, which work together, or could be the result of a mass dispersal in which the arachnids spin webs to spread out from one another.
"I've been hearing from entomologists from Ohio, Kansas, British Columbia - all over the place," said Mike Quinn, an invertebrate biologist with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department who first posted photos online.
One hypothesis is that a social cobweb spider (pictured) spun the web
