The European Space Agency’s Mars Express has snapped the telltale traces of ‘spiders’ scattered across the southern polar region of Mars. Rather than being actual spiders, these small, dark features form when spring sunshine falls on layers of carbon dioxide deposited over the dark winter months.

"This new view of Inca City and its hidden arachnid residents was captured by Mars Express’s High Resolution Stereo Camera," the ESA reported. Their spacecraft grabbed images of "everything from wind-sculpted ridges and grooves to sinkholes on the flanks of colossal volcanoes to impact craters,

Mars' Inca City, formally known as Angustus Labyrinthus, exhibits a linear, almost geometric network of ridges like the Inca ruins on Earth. It is part of a circular feature appro