Springfield spider's handiwork hits the world wide web

A Springfield spider's perfectly formed web, glowing in the sun, has captured more than a few bugs — as well as considerable online attention.

"It truly is a world wide web," said photographer Francis Skalicky, who with wife Michele photographed the spiderweb during a hike on a greenway trail at Lost Hill Park north of town.

Skalicky, a media specialist with Missouri Department of Conservation, thought the photo was worth sharing on MDC's Facebook page. Within days the photo went viral, and the web's size grew to human-catching proportions, according to Skalicky.

"It definitely made it around the world," Skalicky said. Media outlets shared the orb weaver's web as far away as London, India, Australia, Spain, Poland, Canada, Cameroon, Africa and several Arab nations.

A British author inquired if he could use the image as the cover for his new book.

The circular web — in the hands of some sensational media and with Halloween around the corner — grew to become a terrifying creation capable of trapping unsuspecting children.

"I saw it show up on a CNN website and that's when it really took off," Skalicky said, "MDC never said it was huge. It was just the size of a dinner plate, not like the size it grew to be on the web."

Some speculated that the web's proximity to a nearby tree made it look larger than it was.

MDC notes that orb weaver spiders are common in Missouri. Hikers often inadvertently walk through their webs, which the spiders create nightly to catch flying insects and bugs.

Orb weavers not only devour their prey, they also eat their own web at the end of each night, reabsorbing the material to create a new web again.

Skalicky observed that the spider in the famous children's story "Charlotte's Web" was a kind of orb weaver spider. The one he and his wife saw, however, wasn't up to spinning words on its web, he said, laughing.

"I think the neatest part of this whole saga is that it highlights Nature’s craftsmanship," Skalicky said. "Look at that web. It’s almost a perfect circle … there’s a lot of detail to it. It’s a magnificent piece of work — regardless of what size it is."