A web-covered wall in Sulfur Cave, on the Albania–Greece border, holds an estimated 111,000-plus spiders. Guinness World Records recognizes it as the largest multi-species spider web, covering 106 m² (1,141 sq ft). The colony is remarkable not only for its size: two species, Tegenaria domestica and Prinerigone vagans, form one enormous connected web in a cave ecosystem powered by chemical energy rather than sunlight.
Where is Sulfur Cave, and when was the web discovered?
Sulfur Cave lies in the Vromoner Canyon region along the Albania–Greece border. Czech Speleological Society cavers brought the web to scientific attention in 2022. Researchers sampled spiders there in 2024, and the study documenting the community was published in Subterranean Biology on 17 October 2025.
The study, titled An extraordinary colonial spider community in Sulfur Cave (Albania/Greece) sustained by chemoautotrophy, describes an unusual concentration of spiders living in a shared web structure. The cavers’ 2022 discovery and the later scientific study are distinct milestones: the web was noticed first, then sampled and documented by researchers.
Is it the world’s largest spider web?
The most precise record claim is that Guinness World Records lists Sulfur Cave’s structure as the largest multi-species spider web. Guinness gives its web-covered wall area as 106 m² (1,141 sq ft). Some coverage calls it the world’s largest spider web, but that broader wording is less specific than the formal record category; it is safest to describe it as the largest multi-species web, or as a reported contender for the largest web overall.
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The 106 m² figure is the area covered by web on the wall, not the total area of Sulfur Cave. The structure is also not one single, smooth sheet: thousands of individual funnel-shaped webs combine into a vast patchwork.
How many spiders live in the giant web?
The colony is estimated at more than 111,000 spiders, not counted as an exact census of every individual. Guinness’s figures are about 69,000 Tegenaria domestica and more than 42,000 Prinerigone vagans. The FAO AGRIS abstract of the study likewise reports the two species and a combined community exceeding 111,000.
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Tegenaria domestica is the larger funnel-weaving species in the community; Prinerigone vagans is smaller. Their presence in the same extensive colonial web is the key biological novelty. The finding does not mean spiders have never lived near other spiders: it documents these two species together in a shared web formation on an extraordinary scale.
How do spiders survive in a sulfur cave?
The cave’s food web begins with sulfur-oxidizing microbes. They produce biofilms that support non-biting midges; the spiders then prey on the midges. Rather than relying on plants capturing sunlight as the starting point of the food chain, this system is sustained by chemical energy through chemoautotrophy.
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Researchers describe the joint web formation by these species as the first documented example of its kind. One proposed explanation for their coexistence is that pitch darkness may interfere with the larger funnel weaver’s hunting, reducing predation on the smaller species. That is an ecological interpretation reported alongside the study, not proof that darkness always prevents competition or that the same arrangement occurs elsewhere.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why is this discovery unusual?
The headline number and area are striking, but the study’s ecological significance is more specific: two spider species not previously known to build a colonial web together occupy the same enormous connected structure. The cave also links that social arrangement to a food web based on sulfur-oxidizing microbes, rather than sunlight-driven plant growth.
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As study lead author István Urák, associate professor of biology at Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, told Live Science: “The natural world still holds countless surprises for us.”
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Sources
- Guinness World Records: “Largest multi-species spider web”
- FAO AGRIS: indexed abstract of “An extraordinary colonial spider community in Sulfur Cave (Albania/Greece) sustained by chemoautotrophy”
- Live Science: “World’s biggest spiderweb discovered inside ‘Sulfur Cave’ with 111,000 arachnids living in pitch black”
- George Washington University Media Relations: “Media Tip Sheet: World’s Largest Spider Web Discovered”
- Nature: “This is the world’s largest spider web — November’s best science images”
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