In an attempt to escape rising waters, the spiders climb blades of grass and let out hundreds of metres of silk in the hope a gust of wind will catch the web and transport them to safety, he said. A barn is surrounded by webs in Wagga Wagga. Credit:Daniel Munoz/Reuters ''What you are seeing is the result of all their failed attempts to get away.'' An evolutionary geneticist and spider expert, Amber Beavis, said it was unusual to see adults spiders displaying this behaviour, known as ballooning. It is typically used by young spiders to travel away from their birth place, said Dr Beavis from the Australian National University.

She said wolf spiders were not social spiders either. A dog walks through webs in Wagga Wagga. Credit:Daniel Munoz/Reuters ''They're very solitary but under these extreme circumstances they obviously don't mind being around each other.'' Taronga Zoo's spider keeper Brett Finlayson said: "There are more airborne and water-borne insects due to the rain, and so there's a greater food supply for spiders. So more are surviving through to adulthood," he said. Weaving their magic ... a house is surrounded by webs in Wagga Wagga. Credit:Daniel Munoz/Reuters

But the rain is doing something else - it is making spider webs stickier, meaning more insects and bugs are getting stuck in the filaments. Spiders are drinking the extra water droplets hanging from their webs, while the drops are making webs more visible to humans. A fence is covered in webs in Wagga Wagga. Credit:Daniel Munoz/Reuters "The rain sticks to the webs," Mr Finlayson said. "You may have walked past [the web] before, but now you can see it." And as such spiders are fully grown during this season, they are more visible, Mr Finlayson said, adding that he had received a lot of questions about arachnids from zoo visitors this year.

A wild plant is covered in webs in Wagga Wagga. Credit:Daniel Munoz/Reuters He said the rising water levels from the floods pose little threat to the spiders or their webs. "If the water was to rise and the web was to go under, they will move on," Mr Finlayson said. A levee holds flood waters from Wagga Wagga CBD in the foreground while North Wagga is inundated yesterday. Credit:Andrew Meares "They can eat their own web, which is just protein, climb elsewhere and make a new web. But they are more likely to abandon the old web because there is so much food around [now]."

For spiders that live underground, the wet conditions are also a boon. While some spiders may drown if they are stuck in a pool of water for too long, many others are able to find new homes in moist soil, Mr Finlayson said. "They seek out humidity so some rain would appeal to them. They like damp ground and they will look for moist soil that they can dig into." Mr Finlayson said the increase in spiders posed no danger to people - and that they should be grateful, instead of frightened. And if it is a dry summer next year, the spider population would drop back to its previous levels. "The spiders don't pose any harm at all. They are not aggressive and only bite if they face a severe threat or their lives are in danger. They have a mild venom, so if they were to bite you, you would only get a bit of a headache and some local pain.

"The amount of mosquitoes around would be incredible because of all this water, but these spiders are capturing all these insects and bugs. Loading "They are doing us a favour. They are actually helping us out." In 2010 following the floods in Sindh, Pakistan, it was believed the increase in spiders, which cocooned trees with their webs, may have cut the risk of malaria to the local population.