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Spiders are quite literally all around us. A recent entomological survey of North Carolina homes turned up spiders in 100 percent of them, including 68 percent of bathrooms and more than three-quarters of bedrooms. There's a good chance at least one spider is staring at you right now, sizing you up from a darkened corner of the room, eight eyes glistening in the shadows.
Spiders mostly eat insects, although some of the larger species have been known to snack on lizards, birds and even small mammals. Given their abundance and the voraciousness of their appetites, two European biologists recently wondered: If you were to tally up all the food eaten by the world's entire spider population in a single year, how much would it be?
Martin Nyffeler and Klaus Birkhofer published their estimate in the journal the Science of Nature earlier this month, and the number they arrived at is frankly shocking: The world's spiders consume somewhere between 400 million and 800 million tons of prey in any given year. That means that spiders eat at least as much meat as all 7 billion humans on the planet combined, who the authors note consume about 400 million tons of meat and fish each year.
Or, for a slightly more disturbing comparison: The total biomass of all adult humans on Earth is estimated to be 287 million tons. Even if you tack on another 70 million-ish tons to account for the weight of kids, it's still not equal to the total amount of food eaten by spiders in a given year, exceeding the total weight of humanity.
In other words, spiders could eat all of us and still be hungry.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Saturday April 01 2017, @03:06PM (1 child)
Imagine an Earth without spiders.
You'd be eaten by "between 400 million and 800 million tons" of flies, mosquitoes, cockroaches, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday April 01 2017, @03:45PM
Well, something kinda like that is going on in Europe right now...
(Score: 2) by srobert on Saturday April 01 2017, @04:05PM (3 children)
I wasn't aware this was a possibility. But even though it's unlikely, the thought of it is so terrifying that we must allocate all available resources to prevent it. There can be no neutrality here. You are either with us or you are with the spiders.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by WalksOnDirt on Saturday April 01 2017, @04:11PM (1 child)
I'm with the spiders. They don't bother me and I don't bother them, but the insects live in fear. I'm always happy to see spiders inside my house.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 01 2017, @07:05PM
Mostly, spiders don't bother me. I HAVE met a couple aggressive little dudes, that I decided to steer clear of. And, a big hairy spider that sneaks up on me, and starts walking around, can scare the crap out of me. The ones that are actually dangerous, I seldom even notice. A guy at work points out the recluse and black widow spiders, because he's afraid of all spiders, and tries to scare me too. Doesn't work well - if a spider annoys me at work, I just step on him, and that's that. If the spider doesn't annoy me, he's free to go on his way.
A rather cool sight, is in the autumn, the spiders are busy going to bed. The first cold day to come along, we fire up the heaters, which blows warm air out across the ceiling, and the spiders get to hot. They come out of their hidey holes, and descend on a silk strand, dangling at whatever height they find comfortable. There might be several dozen in my shop, just dangling. If they get down near my head height, I often take out a propane torch, and start torching them. Getting later into the winter, you don't see much of this. Probably because I've killed most of the adults, and the eggs are still safely hidden wherever their mama put them before it turned cold. There's always a new crop of them in the spring, whatever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 01 2017, @04:14PM
Actually, I'm with the spiders on this. It's not that I particularly like spiders, I just hate humans more. On that note, we should encourage more people to smoke. Make it compulsory at schools or something.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Saturday April 01 2017, @05:10PM
NSFarachnophobes
creepy crawly
The Who - Boris the Spider [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 01 2017, @06:57PM (1 child)
"spiders eat at least as much meat"
I was under the impression that spiders don't eat meat. They suck fluids. Hmmmmm - interesting Youtube video . . . . scientific or not, the video does explain a lot. With or without serrated chelicerae, they are digesting the meat. The beginning of digestion just takes place outside of the body.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 01 2017, @08:15PM
This one is probably the closest to being FAKE NEWS today.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by zeigerpuppy on Sunday April 02 2017, @12:35AM (1 child)
next time you see a spider walking across a surface, try a little experiment: put your hand on the surface about 10cm infront of the spider.
It will invariably get to about 2cm from your hamd and walk around.
spiders don't like human and generally avoid us if they can.
ps. don't try this with poisonous species, and I have no money if you want to sue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 02 2017, @09:05AM
Yeah, okay.. [nocookie.net]
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday April 02 2017, @01:35AM
"Your Home is Teeming With 'Quiet and Benign Roommates,' Say Scientists "
/article.pl?sid=16/01/19/1432214 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Sunday April 02 2017, @08:08AM (2 children)
What I really would not want to be eaten alive by are HOUSE CENTIPEDES.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday April 02 2017, @03:13PM (1 child)
That probably won't happen, but if you threaten them you may regret it:
Although house centipedes are not aggressive, and their jaws are not powerful enough to break human skin easily, they will sometimes bite in self-defense. Severe swelling and pain can result from the venom injected, but in most cases the bite is no worse than the sting of a bee.
-- http://www.uark.edu/ua/arthmuse//house_centipede.html [uark.edu]
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Sunday April 02 2017, @09:26PM
Lucky for me I don't threaten bugs - I will capture and remove them from my home at worst.