We used to see these a lot here in middle Georgia, but not in a couple of years.
I'd get a full cardio workout whenever I walked thru their web.
That reminds me of a funny story..... Now if you are in the south we have these things called "writing spiders" that come out in the fall.
Back in the early 80's I was working as a Deputy Sheriff on the morning watch and my partner and I went to a trailer park (the seedy type) to serve a warrant on a known trouble maker. It was fall, and there was some dew on the ground. Last 2 times we went to pick this guy up, he ran out the back door (or tried). So my partner, who is a scrawny sort of guy said "you go around back and I'll flush him out". So we park 2 trailers down and I sneak up to the back door and radio him that I'm in position.
About 30 seconds later I hear this blood curdling scream in an unnaturally high pitch and can see his flashlight beam swinging wildly in the misty night air. I figured the guy had come out the front and jumped him. So I run around to the front door and to my surprise, here is my partner standing alone in the yard beating the crap out of himself with his metal flashlight and screaming like Ruby Rhod in the 5th Element. Seems he had walked right into a writing spider's web. The spider was trapped on his chest by the web and to say he freaked is putting it mildly.
The guy in the trailer turns on the flood light and comes out to see what all the noise is about. My partner was so pissed at himself and the fact that both the guy we were looking for an I were laughing, that he stormed off to the car. I ended up talking to the guy and let him follow us down instead of riding in the patrol car (and the next time we had a warrant, I just a called him and he came in on his own).
And yes, I've walking into those webs myself. Around here you have to use a flashlight after dark if you don't want to walk into one.
This is the scream (but higher pitched and squeekier)
Ruby Rhod & the scream
