Quote:
Originally Posted by matt
Yeah. I saw this on the Courier Mail's website the other day and thought it was a prank. Not being a 'native' Queenslander, I thought it had to be a joke. That was until I asked a few of my work colleagues to also have a look. They casually replied "oh...yeah...we get those up here".  |
Hi Matt,
Golden Orbs of that size are not difficult to find well south of Queensland,
including here in the Kuring-Gai Chase National Park in Sydney and the Brisbane
Water National Park on the Central Coast.
Though I have never seen a bird stuck in one of their webs, I wouldn't
doubt for one moment that if, for example, a red browed finch, which is also
common here, were to fly in the web, it would get stuck. I quite regularly
see bits of broken branch or bark, probably weighing tens of times more than
a finch, seemingly suspended by itself in mid air but upon closer examination
is caught in the beautiful web of a Golden Orb.
So as the person from the Queensland Museum noted, the key thing is the
strength of their web and as I understand it, these particular webs have
some of the highest tensile strength to weight ratios for any material known.
Best regards
Gary