For all the Tolkien fans and those who love all those creepy crawlies, the scene in second of the Hobbit movie trilogy with the spiders in the forest of Mirkwood is a classic one. But what if such a forest existed in real life. Well, the incredible scene of spider webs covering vast areas of green actually came to life along the shores of Lake Vistonida in northeastern Greece.
The incredible, and somewhat unsettling image for the arachnophobes, of the flora covered completely by spider webs was something out of a fantasy movie.

A unique veil of spider web had stretched across at least 1000 metres and covered all the vegetation by the lake’s shores and the road leading to the Vatopedi Monastery of Porto Lagos. The spider web “covered” plants, shrubs, fences, and even some chapels, next to Lake Vistonida.
Lake Vistonida encompasses a unique ecosystem and the local climate can be described as mid-Mediterranean. It hosts a variety of fauna, which comprises several types of fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, birds as well as flora.
The scientific explanation of the phenomenon of overgrowth of spiders, and by extent the spider webs, is the result of an overgrowth of the sandfly population along wetlands.