Camper Awakens to Hundreds of Arachnids Swarming Tent in Skin-Crawling Video

The remote wilderness of Alaska is home to plenty of wildlife that you wouldn’t want to run into after the sun goes down, such as bears, wolves, and so on. But one hiker who settled down to camp at Lake Clark National Park and Preserve in southwest Alaska got quite the surprise when woken up in the middle of the night by hundreds, if not thousands, of arachnids swarming the outside of the tent.

The national park posted the 45-second video to its Facebook account on Halloween, aptly enough, adding a spooky caption to fully set the mood.

“In the remote depths of Lake Clark’s vast, wild landscape, a weary backpacker settles in for a night at camp after a long day of exploring,” the post read. “Little do they know, creatures of the night lurk in the woods, waiting for the opportune moment to strike fear.”

“Snuggled into their warm sleeping bag, the tired explorer nods off to dreamland … suddenly they are jolted awake with the sense of being covered by creepy crawly creatures of the forest, only to discover their nightmare has become a reality,” it added. “Hundreds of daddy longlegs have engulfed the tent!

In the video, the camper can be seen shining their flashlight from inside the tent, illuminating the clusters of eight-legged creatures swarming the outside of the tent.

But while the video may indeed not be for the faint of heart, daddy longlegs—also known as harvestmen or harvest spiders—are actually completely harmless. As part of an order of arachnids called “Opiliones,” daddy longlegs don’t have fangs or venom, nor do they have silk glands or the ability to build webs. They also have just one body segment, not two like spiders, and a single pair of eyes compared to three or four.

In fact, most species of Opiliones are omnivorous, feeding primarily on small insects, plant material, and fungi. Others are scavengers, sustaining on dead organisms and fecal material.

As far as why the arachnids clustered on the tent the way they did, there are a few plausible explanations. After hordes of daddy longlegs amassed onto an administrative building at Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve a few years back, the New York Times spoke with arachnid experts who said that the spindly Opiliones may cluster together to keep from drying out when humidity levels plummet in the summer and fall.

“With few spots to store water and plenty of places from which to lose it, the arachnids rapidly parch,” the article explains. “Hunkering down together creates a microclimate for the arachnids, not unlike a sweaty locker room, that can stall the desiccation process.”

Another hypothesis is that the Opiliones cluster to defend themselves against predators such as birds, lizards, and insects. Because they don’t produce venom they might be defenseless on their own, but see strength in numbers.

In either case, should you ever encounter a rampant mob of daddy longlegs, they’re probably less interested in you than they are staying moist and safe, as unsettling as their appearance might be.