Spiders ― those eight-legged, hairy, creepy-crawling, poison-fanged, silk-spinning arachnids ― are often the stuff that nightmares and horror movies are made of.
Spiders primarily eat insects, with the exception of some larger spider species that have hearty appetites for a good lizard or bird or small mammal. But Washington Post reporter Christopher Ingrahamexplored a disturbingly intriguing dilemma this week ― if spiders ate human beings, how many would they eat?
The matter came up because earlier this month, European biologists Martin Nyffeler and Klaus Birkhofer published a paper in the journal Science of Nature, estimating the total weight of prey consumed by spiders as a group.
By Lee Speigel – Full Story at the Huffington Post