It's not a scene from a new Lord of the Rings movie. This forest area near Jerusalem really has become infested by a colony of long-jawed spiders (Tetragnatha), a variety of arachnid which feed on mosquitoes that hover over lakes and pools.

The strange sight is rarely seen in Israel though. Igor Armicach, a doctoral student at Hebrew University’s Arachnid Collection, told Reuters that the large-scale 'city' of webs is an "exceptional case” so arachnophobes visiting the area have no cause to cancel their trip.