My Year of Darwin 3/3/2014: Do social spiders have social networks?

"I may here just mention, that I found, near St. Fe Bejada, many large black spiders, with ruby-coloured marks on their backs, having gregarious habits. There webs were placed vertically, as is invariably the case with the genus Epeira: they were separated from each other by a space of about two feet, but were all attached to certain common lines, which were all great length, and extended to all parts of the community. In this manner the tops of some large bushes were encompassed by the united nets." Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle

Social spiders are relatively common in the tropics. I saw them several times in the Manaus area but they were a different species than the ones Darwin was observing. I thought social species were a bit creepy. Individual spiders were tiny and orange but there were hundreds of them and the nests were 1 - 2 meters wide and I observed one that was probably 4 meters tall. Anything that disturbs the web brings on a horde of tiny fanged spiders. I was told that birds and lizards would be captured in the webs.