I get to see a ton of wildlife in Toronto from raccoons to coyotes, skunks, and squirrels.

But urban wildlife is a lot more than just acute distraction.

They're like nature's health monitors.

Their presence can, I mean, sometimes boost our mood.

They can also clean our air and even clue us in on potential health risks.

So in a bit, we'll talk to Dr. Kaylee Byers about the concept of one health and the critical

role of wildlife in public health monitoring.

And later in the episode, we'll tackle the biology of addiction.

But first, we're going to talk about some really big, wild spider colonies.

It's really cool. Don't be scared.

I'm Dr. Samantha Amin, and this is Curiosity Weekly.

Recently, a group of scientists stumbled upon what could be the largest spider colony in the world.

Picture the giant spider nests and Harry Potter in the Chamber of Secrets?

Well, they're practically real, only bigger.

The European team found these nests on the border of Greece and Albania,

specifically in a place called the Voldemort Canyon, sorry, Vromaner Canyon.

Imagine this, a web that stretches across a massive 106 square meters.

That's like roughly half the size of a tennis court.

And they think there are about 111,000 spiders living in this giant web. That's a lot of

eight-legged friends. And for my fellow arachnophobes, we're going to push through together because

there's some really cool signs here. The researchers published their findings in the journal

Subterranean Biology.

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