How Morning Spider Webs Make Telegraphs Go Silent in Japan

In Japan, telegraph lines often go silent at sunrise. Operators tap at their keys, but the receiving equipment stays quiet. What causes that?

Any telegraph worker in Japan would simply say, “It’s nothing special; the sun has risen…”

But the culprit isn’t just the sun — it’s giant spiders building webs between the telegraph wires and the ground. In the morning, dew collects on those webs and turns them into electrical conductors. When an electrical signal hits a damp web, it takes an unexpected detour straight into the ground.

That’s when workers show up with long-handled brooms. They move from pole to pole, sweep the webs off the wires, and break the “paths” the telegrams were taking into the ground.