It's not quite the World Wide Web. But for a spider web, it’s HUGE!

The spiders in Aitoliko, Greece, have had a lot of little bugs to eat. Experts say the numbers of lake flies have gone way up because of humid weather. The more food available, the more an animal population grows. The tiny, well-fed spiders cover trees, bushes, and grass in thick webs. The webs go on for a few hundred yards!

Meanwhile, scientists notice something else. In other places, there don’t seem to be enough bugs! They don’t mean pesky mosquitoes, disease-carrying ticks, crop-munching aphids, or cockroaches. Those seem to be doing fine. But people see beneficial bugs—native bees, moths, butterflies, and fireflies—much less often than they used to.

Older people remember days when car windshields were filled with smashed bugs. They remember when finding a cocoon was easy. Last year, scientists in Germany captured bugs in nets at nature preserves. They did the same thing 27 years ago. In the old experiment, they captured 82 percent more bugs. That’s a big drop! But the loss of bugs is hard to prove. Few studies like the one in Germany have been done in the past. It’s hard to tell how many bugs are missing when you don’t know how many you used to have.

Why may bugs be disappearing? Scientists have some guesses. Bugs have lost a lot of habitat—weedy spots they love to live in. People use bug-killing chemicals called pesticides. Light pollution gives bugs like fireflies fewer dark places to live. To try to help, people grow acres of bug-friendly flowers—a perfect bug home.

But spiders in Greece keep munching bugs and shooting webs. If spiders could wonder, they might be wondering, “What’s all the fuss?”