But even that web is dwarfed by those spun by Darwin’s bark spider.

“They build their web with the orb suspended directly above a river or the water body of a lake, a habitat that no other spider can use,” says Professor Ingi Agnarsson, the director of the Museum of Zoology at the University of Puerto Rico, in San Juan who made the discovery with colleagues.

That allows the spiders to catch insects flying over water, and explains why the web is so long.

To reach from one bank to the other, the spider must weave anchoring lines of up to 25m.

BBC – Earth News – Gigantic spider’s web discovered in Madagascar.