Charlie Stayt and Naga Munchetty on BBC Breakfast

Charlie Stayt and Naga Munchetty on BBC Breakfast (Image: BBC)

What species coexist in the Greek/Albanian border spider web?

Why does the massive web provoke public fear reactions?

What other warnings did BBC Breakfast hosts issue?

BBC Breakfast viewers were left grimacing over a horrifying clip of what could be the world’s biggest spider’s web – the size of half a tennis court.

Charlie interrupted the show to warn viewers: “A little warning if you’re not a fan of creepy crawlies, this is the time to look away.”

The camera then cut to a clip of the web, which initially didn’t even look like it had spiders, but more like a long piece of material.

“Oh!” Naga exclaimed, as Charlie explained: “If you’re trying to work out what’s going on, yes, it’s a spider’s web.

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“It’s 100,000 spiders living in what could be the biggest web in the world.”

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Spider's web

The blanket-like substance is actually a huge web (Image: BBC)

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Naga went on: “To give you an idea of how big it is, it spans the size of half a tennis court.

“It was found in a cave on the Greek/Albanian border and is home to two species of spider which scientists previously didn’t think would co-exist or work together, but obviously they have.”

She added: “This is unbelievably beautiful.”

Charlie, however, shared: “For some people, that’s nightmarish.”

“Burn it. Burn it with fire.. Now!!” one viewer commented. Another said: “Holy s**t, just nuke it!!”

The spiders are living in a giant colony inside a pitch-black, sulfur-rich cave.

Evolutionary biologist Lena Grinsted compared their “extremely rare” living conditions to humans living in a block of flats.

Naga Munchetty and Charlie Stayt on BBC Breakfast

Charlie admitted it’s “nightmarish” (Image: BBC)

“When I saw this study, I was very excited because … group living is really rare in spiders,” Grinsted, a senior lecturer at the U.K.’s University of Portsmouth, told The Associated Press.

“The fact that there was this massive colony of spiders living in a place that nobody had really noticed before — I find extremely exciting.”

The uniqueness of the web isn’t just its size, but also that 69,000 spiders of one species and 42,000 of another are living side by side, instead of the larger spider preying on the smaller one.

“So often if you have spiders in close vicinity, they will fight and end up eating each other,” Grinsted said, according to CBS News.

“We can sometimes see that if there’s an abundance of food that they sort of become a bit less aggressive.”