Bugging out: Thousands of wolf spiders flee Aussie floodwaters

Wolf spiders beat a hasty retreat from their flooded burrows on NSW's mid-north coast. Screenshot / Melanie Williams, Facebook

In scenes most people would only experience in their nightmares, thousands of spiders have been caught on camera fleeing rising floodwaters across NSW in Australia.

A number of locals across the flooded state took to social media to share pictures of the phenomenon.

One of these was Melanie Williams, who almost lost her Macksville house to the swollen Nambucca River on NSW's mid-north coast.

Speaking to the ABC, Williams said she was watching the floodwaters make their way to her home when she spotted "all these little black things" running up her fence.

"All the brown you can see is spiders trying to beat the flood water," Kinchela local Matt Lovenfosse wrote in a social media post that's since gone viral. Photo / Matt Lovenfosse

"That was enough to really freak me out. I had never seen anything like it before," she said.

"I am an arachnophobe from way back so I hope they've gone back to wherever they came from.

"I occasionally see spiders around the place but never anything like that. It was just insane."

Williams was initially puzzled by the phenomenon, but on closer inspection she realised the spiders were finding any dry land they could.

"As the water was rising, the letterbox was going under further and further and I could see all these little black things on there and I thought, 'Oh my God, they're spiders,'" she said.

"Then I looked at my neighbour's fence and almost had a heart attack. There were literally thousands of them."

The spiders, later identified as wolf spiders, were also photographed by Williams carrying their egg sacks to protect their babies.

Fleeing spiders, some carrying their egg sacks. Screenshot / Melanie Williams, Facebook

Wolf spiders typically live in burrows underground, with the floodwaters forcing them out of their secret homes and into the open.

An hour south of Williams' Macksville home, more spiders were fleeing the flooded Kinchela Creek.

Kinchela, a village on the mid-north coast, sits near the Macleay River.

In a now-viral post on Facebook, Kinchela local Matt Lovenfosse shared the horrifying picture.

"All the brown you can see is spiders trying to beat the flood water," he wrote.

Despite the wild pictures, a professor from Sydney University's integrative ecology group said the flood of spiders wasn't a surprise.

Many areas across #NSW currently resemble an inland sea. Once the rain stops & the water begins to reside, there will be a massive combined effort to clean up. However until that happens, listen to warnings, follow the @NSWSES advice, look out for family, friends & neighbours. pic.twitter.com/vhDqxkw40E

— NSW RFS (@NSWRFS) March 22, 2021

"All this is happening under our noses, but we just don't know what's going on," Professor Dieter Hochuli told the ABC.

"There's this vibrant ecosystem happening all the time.

"What happens with the floods is all these animals that spend their lives cryptically on the ground can't live there any more.

"The spiders are the really obvious ones as they throw out their webs.

"Just like people, they're trying to get to higher ground during a flood."

Hochuli said spiders were moving "from the ground floor to the penthouse", just like humans would, to avoid floodwaters.

"One of the reasons we don't notice these sorts of species normally is because they're hunted by other things, like birds," he said.

"The urgency of getting out of the floods means these ground-dwelling animals have to move.

"Some spiders can survive underwater for a period of time but others can't and those ones are basically trying to move from the ground floor to the penthouse to avoid being flooded out."

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian earlier today revealed the devastating human cost of the flood crisis, saying many feel they are at "breaking point" as more than 18,000 people have been forced to flee their homes.