History Main / SpiderSwarm

* The story "Spider Isle" from the Creator/MarvelComics era of ''ComicBook/ConanTheBarbarian'' had Conan face a vengeful man who's magically gained control of thousands of spiders.

* ''ComicBook/ImmortalIronFist'': The Bride of Nine Spiders, one of the Immortal Weapons, combines this with TheWormThatWalks. Her body hosts a myriad of spiders which she can release at will to devour enemies alive.

* Some real-life spider species actually ''are'' [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_spider social]], but not to the extent of eusocial insects (like bees, ants, and termites). These species will band together in colonies, cooperate in capturing prey, share food, and communally watch over their eggs. A few species even have division of labor between dominant, reproductive females and subordinate females that only occasionally reproduce -- whether this constitutes true eusociality is under debate by biologists. As of 2015, only 25 of the 45,000 extant species of spiders known are considered "social".
* M. balfouri is a particularly noteworthy example, not in scale of number of individuals but in term of size of individuals. They are medium-sized tarantulas but only form colonies of three to twelve individuals. Also bizarre in that they seem to evolving ''away'' from eusociality as they actively assist each other in breeding and surviving the experience of breeding for the males of colony. [[note]] Colonies are all brothers and sisters and never reproduce with other members of the colony.[[/note]]

* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIIIReignOfChaos'': Nerubians are spider-people with a social structure, with Queens and Spider Lords as the most powerful units. Though [[MixAndMatchCritter they're more of a mishmash of various arthropods including spiders, beetles and mantids]].

* One of the Council of Spiders members who Tim fights at a League of Assassins base in ''ComicBook/RedRobin'' is a PestController who is always covered in spiders and who can have his spiders lay eggs in people and then kill them while eating their way out.

* In ''Film/HangmansCurse'', it's revealed that the attacks are the result of planted pheromones causing an African Spotted wolf spider to bite the victims. Then, they breed with a brown recluse spider and infest the school. The climax of the film has the spiders blanketing part of the school.

* ''Film/{{Monster Hunter|2020}}'': What's left of Alpha Team after their encounter with Diablos is attacked by a swarm of spider-like Nerscylla. Only Captain Artemis gets out alive.
* In ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'', as Indy and Satipo are exploring the South American temple, Satipo's back becomes covered with tarantulas, which Indy brushes off. Tarantulas are usually solitary.

* ''The Ashtown Burials'' has the deadly Whip Spiders living in the Polygon, which hunt in packs and attack with stinging tentacles. At one point Nolan tumbles onto their level and is swarmed instantly. GoodThingYouCanHeal comes into play, though it still ''[[ImmortalityHurts hurts]]''.

* ''Literature/HarryPotter'': The giant spiders known as Acromantulas appear to be social, although instead of a queen, they are led by an elderly male spider named Aragog. It's explicitly stated that Aragog had a bride, so apparently, Acromantulas females don't feed on their male (although they do traditionally devour their dead).
** The acromantula in the forbidden forest are forced out and swarm into Hogwarts during the final battle in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows''.
** Acromantulas were spiders bred by wizards to guard treasure troves, which explains their size, their sociality (Acromantulas, while acting otherwise like spiders, can communicate with humans through speech), their preference for human flesh, and why they tend to favor humans they hatch under the care of.
* In ''Literature/TheHobbit'', one area of Mirkwood forest is full of giant intelligent talking spiders who all live together in the trees and cooperatively hunt prey. Justified by the fact that they are not normal arachnids, but rather demonic spiders. Probably the UrExample.
* In ''Literature/MalazanBookOfTheFallen'', Mogora, occasional wife of Iskaral Pust, is a shapeshifter who can become a swarm of hundreds of spiders. [[ForTheLulz She torments her husband to no end with her abilities]].
* In ''Literature/TheQuestOfTheUnaligned'', one fire-spider is pretty easy to defeat. Unfortunately, they tend to run in swarms of 500+. When Alaric and Laeshana have to fight through a tunnel infested by such a swarm, it quickly becomes one of the book's tensest and most epic scenes.

* In ''Series/TheFutureIsWild'', one of the speculative future creatures is the Silver Spider, which has a similar eusocial caste system to ants or bees.

* Episode 5 of ''Podcast/TheLostCat'', ironically entitled "They're Only Spiders", features an absolutely ''massive'' swarm of spiders that pours out of toilets and sinks and sends the townsfolk fleeing. They take shelter around the Hole of the Leviathan -- due to its strange vibrations -- and end up surrounded by a wall of spiders so thick it ''blots out the sky''. [[spoiler:By the next day, they're all dead and everyone eats them]].

* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'': Shriezyx are spider-like aberrations that live in large hives, and when disturbed attack as moving carpets of chittering, swarming bodies.

* After Ophelia is injured in ''VideoGame/BrutalLegend'', Eddie is told he needs to go to the lair of the Metal Queen to get bass strings thick enough for Killmaster to heal her, which is crawling with swarms of tiny spiders that [[PersonalSpaceInvader will swarm over Eddie and drain his health]], plus larger, human sized spiders, and the Metal Queen herself, who's as big as a house.

* ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64'': The spider mini-boss will send groups of smaller spiders [[WeaponizedOffspring (possibly its children)]] after Tiny Kong.
* ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountryReturns'': One of the levels involves the Kongs having to outrun a gigantic swarm of invincible spiders after disturbing their nest.
* In ''VideoGame/DontStarve'', the spider enemies live in a spider nest, attack all together, and a nest can spawn a "Spider Queen" who spawns spider followers.

* In ''VideoGame/KillItWithFire'', the whole plot of the game revolves around stopping a spider infestation in a city.

* In ''VideoGame/MetroLastLight'', Artyom encounters nests of Spiderbugs, GiantSpider-scorpion hybrids who are WeakenedByTheLight. A few rounds of flashlight tag and they're FlippingHelpless.
* In ''VideoGame/PowerPete'', in Fairy Tale Trail, Little Miss Muffet will release this under her dress.
* Killing a giant spider in the 1996 original ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil1'' would cause it to release dozens of baby spiders (about the size of a real tarantula) that could attack, but only did negligible damage to the player. They can be stepped on simply by walking over them, but it's better to just run away, since they despawn along with momma spider's carcass once you leave the room.

* The forest area of ''VideoGame/SpiritualAssassinTaromaru'' have a path which is ''carpeted'' with spiders, that devours everything in sight. Luckily there are platforms in the stage you can use to cross, but miss a jump and you'll be DevouredByTheHorde.
* In ''VideoGame/Uncharted3DrakesDeception'', there are tons of massive spider swarms that appear out of nowhere to crawl all over Nate and co. and can actually kill Nate (or the RedShirt Mooks who get ditched by Talbot once they have [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness outlived their usefulness]].)
* Nerubians in ''[[VideoGame/WarCraft Warcraft III]]'' are spider-men with a social structure, with Queens and Spider Lords as the most powerful units. Though [[MixAndMatchCritter they're more of a mishmash of various arthropods including spiders, beetles and mantids]].

* Parodied in ''Webcomic/GrrlPower'' comic 331. When Vance introduces himself to Sydney he claims to be 100s of spiders communicating telepathically as a colony intellect, held together by a fake human suit. Queue Sydney moving away. Incidentally, Dave has said he hadn't actually decided on Vance's power yet, so this may end up being true.
* The party from ''Webcomic/OurLittleAdventure'' is confronted once by several {{giant spider}}s and [[http://danielscreations.com/ola/comics/ep0229.html a full swarm of normal-sized spiders]] at the same time.

* In ''Webcomic/WildeLife,'' this is actually a ''good'' thing -- wolf spiders are the minions of [[BigGood the White-Faced Bear]], and tend to show up when our protagonists are threatened (particularly [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Cliff]], whom the WFB is invested in for unknown reasons). [[SpidersAreScary This does not mean that the person they're helping won't be freaked out when they swarm all over him]].

[[folder:Websites]]

** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-859 SCP-859]] can apparently make these appear from out of nowhere.

** In "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS7E16CampfireTales Campfire Tales]]", a camping trip is interrupted by the arrival of a huge swarm of fly-ders, [[MixAndMatchCritters spiders with insect wings]], that came there seeking food. This kind of swarming behavior seems natural for the fly-ders, which are able to force the characters to flee through sheer numbers and multidirectional attacks. Applejack implies the fly-ders would have tried to eat them if they had managed to overwhelm them.