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Particularly large species of spiders are able to hunt lizards, snakes, frogs, fish, rodents and even bats, however overwhelming most of these arthropods are not impressive in size and feeds on insects. Spider appetite can only be envied: recent research shows that all over the planet netniks annually consume from 400 to 800 million tons of biomass!
For comparison, the total mass of all people in 2012 was “just” 300 million tons. Thus, assuming that spiders will start eating exclusively Homo sapiens then in this ridiculous in a hypothetical situation, arthropods will clearly eat us less than in a year.
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Across the globe, you can find about 45 thousand species spiders, and new ones constantly open. Rare creatures are unlikely whether it is possible to call, however, a secretive lifestyle and, as a rule, arthropod waking at night does not allow scientists to fully least “get to know” them.
Incredible gluttony of spiders
In order to determine how much all the Earth spiders eat per year, employees of the Swedish Lund University and Swiss University of Basel shoveled a huge few months amount of scientific literature and created based on the received statistics a special mathematical model. She let the scientists determine that all the Earth’s netniks weigh approximately 25 million tons, and they eat 400-800 million tons of animals per year. More than 90% insects make up the diet of the global spider population, however some tropical giants, as mentioned above, also swallow birds, reptiles, fish, mammals and bats.
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Experts note that such a wide range of estimates of the total the prey of all spiders is due to the fact that these results vary even within a separate ecosystem. However, and most cautious ratings are impressive.
By the way, UN experts report that humanity consumes annually about 400 million tons of fish and meat, and all whales, together taken, they eat 280-500 million tons of animal food per year. It turns out that spiders can be gluttonous not only us but also sea giants swallowing huge volumes every day plankton.
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Researchers also estimated that 95 percent of the total mass arthropods eat spiders live in meadows and forests. And here are the home setniks and spiders, living in agricultural areas, often live starving.
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Insects
