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Arachnophobe's nightmare 恐懼蜘蛛症患者的惡夢

Lake Tawakoni State Park rangers Mike McCord, left, and Freddie Gowin monitor a giant communal spider web near Willis Point, Texas, US.

Most spiders are solitary creatures , so the discovery in the US of a vast web crawling with millions of spiders that is spreading across several acres of a North Texas park is causing a stir among scientists and park visitors.

Sheets of web have encased several mature oak trees and are thick enough in places to block out the sun along a nature trail at Lake Tawakoni State Park, about 50 miles east of Dallas.

The gossamer strands, slowly overtaking a lakefront peninsula, emit a fetid odor, perhaps from the dead insects entwined in the silk. The web whines with the sound of countless mosquitoes and flies trapped in its folds.

Allen Dean, a spider expert at Texas A&M University, and several other scientists said they had never seen a web of this size outside of the tropics, where the relatively few species of "social" spiders that build communal webs are most active.

The web may be a combined effort of social cobweb spiders. But their large communal webs generally take years to build, experts say, and this web was formed in just a few months.

Or it could be a striking example of what is known as ballooning, in which lightweight spiders throw out silk filaments to ride the air currents.

The staff expects the web to last until colder weather this fall, when the spiders begin dying off.

For now the concern is to defend this marvel from teenagers who might take a stick and knock it all down, or little boys wanting to push their little sisters into it.

"We'll try to protect it, with what little staff we have," said Garde, the superintendent. "I'll use the web-of-life analogy. If you break one part of the web, it affects us all."  (NYT)

大多數蜘蛛都是獨居的生物。因此，美國德州北部一座公園內出現綿延數英畝的廣大蜘蛛網，上頭爬行著上百萬隻蜘蛛的奇景，引起科學家與遊園民眾的議論紛紛。

沿著達拉斯東邊五十哩的塔瓦科尼湖州立公園內的自然步道，層層的蜘蛛網已經包覆了許多成年橡樹，某些地方的蜘蛛網厚度已達到可以遮蔽陽光的地步。

日積月累地盤據半島上湖濱地帶的蜘蛛絲散發出惡臭，可能是蜘蛛絲上昆蟲遺體腐化所致。蜘蛛網內發出無數隻被困在蜘蛛絲間的蚊子與蒼蠅所發出來的聲音。

德州農工大學專研蜘蛛的昆蟲學家艾倫．狄恩與其他好幾位昆蟲學家說，他們從未在熱帶以外的地區見過這麼巨大的蜘蛛網，因為在熱帶地區，有少數「群居」蜘蛛合力建造大蜘蛛網，這種蜘蛛品種是最活躍的一群。

巨型蜘蛛網可能是由群居的蜘蛛共同織造成。專家指出，這般大的蜘蛛網，一般來說要花上好幾年的時間才能形成，不過此巨型蜘蛛網在數個月內就形成了。

這也可能是膨脹因素的罕見的例子，讓輕巧的蜘蛛們乘著氣流吐細絲。

工作人員預估此巨型蜘蛛網會持續存在到今年秋涼之際，屆時之後蜘蛛會陸續死亡。

目前的要務是，預防此奇景遭到青少年用棍棒拍打，或是小男孩刻意將他們的妹妹推進蜘蛛網內的破壞。

公園管理員嘉爾德說：「我們將以有限的人力保護它，」他並說：「我會用生命網絡來比喻，亦即，如果你破壞網絡的一部份，會連帶波及到整個網絡。」

（紐約時報╱翻譯：林亞蒂）

Today's Words 今日單字 1. encase v.t. 包圍 (bao1 wei2) 例: It was a blue sapphire encased in white gold. (這是個曾被白金包裹的藍寶石。) 2. peninsula n. 半島 (ban4 dao3) 例: Gibraltar is a peninsula. (直布羅陀是個半島。) 3. fetid adj. 臭的 (chou4 de5) 例: The rotting bodies left a fetid stench in the air. (腐爛的遺體讓空氣散發惡臭。) 4.filament n. 細絲 (xi4 si1) 例: The material was coming apart, exposing the filaments. (這細絲外露的材料已經快斷了。)

SAY WHAT? 說說看 causing a stir 引起騷動 Saying that someone or something is causing a stir means that he, she or it is attracting a lot of attention and curiosity. A similar expression is to stir things up, which means to do something which causes questions to be asked, for example "Katy really stirred things up when she told Marie that she'd seen her husband at dinner with another woman." If someone is a stirrer they consistently seek to cause problems for other people by disseminating information. 說某人或某事正引起騷動，這表示此人或此事吸引很多外界的關注與好奇。 另外一個用到「stir」的表達是「製造事端」 ，也就是做一些事情而引發更多問題。例如：「凱蒂真是把事情鬧大，她竟然告訴瑪莉她看到其先生跟其他女人共進晚餐。」 如果有人被稱為煽動者，那麼他／她就是試圖散播訊息給其他人添麻煩。

Out Loud 對話練習 Sally: Hey, fancy a stroll? Simon: Where are you thinking of going? Sally: I was thinking of checking out that huge web everyone is talking about. Simon: Urgh! Count me out. I hate spiders. Sally: Really? Okay, maybe it isn't for you then. See you later! 莎莉：喂，要不要出去蹓躂一下啊？ 賽門：妳想去哪裡呢？ 莎莉：我想去看看大家都在談論的超大蜘蛛網。 賽門：好噁心喔！不要算我吧。我討厭蜘蛛。 莎莉：是喔？好吧，或許這不適合你。待會兒見！ count me out　別算我 If you ask someone to count you out, then you don't want him or her to include you in his or her plans. 如果你請某人不要算你進去，這代表你不想要他們把你包含在他們的計畫內。

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