First, it's taken too long for someone to give DJ props for a great write-up. Very well written, funny, etc. *applause*
Second, if I understand this correctly, then what we're witnessing is kind of like form of accelerated evolution? The whole place flooded, I imagine a bunch of insects died, and the "smart" ones (either by intellect or by dumb luck) happened to crawl up the trees and ended up living. Enter now the spiders, who've realized that if they cast a web around the whole tree they've basically just encapsulated free meals for life. That's amazing, especially if - like DJ said - they aren't all the same species of spider. That would mean they evolved the ability to work collaboratively (even if they don't know they are) for the purposes of taking advantage of the situation that happened by chance (i.e., all the bugs being up in the trees all at once).
Very cool shit. And fucking scary. Fuck spiders.