What Do Spiders Eat?
WouterWhat do spiders eat? The answer depends on the species. Most arachnids will only eat enough to survive, but there are those that will take advantage of a situation to eat more than their fair share.
For example, the bagheera kiplingi, a plant-eating spider found in Central America, is the only known spider to process nectar. It also feeds on tiny, specialized leaf tip structures and ant larvae.
Other than nectar, other common food sources for spiders include ants, wasps, mice, and small rodents. Depending on the species, spiders can eat as many as five times per day.
The amount of food spiders eat annually is estimated to be between 400 and 800 million metric tons. This is nearly twice as much as humans consume in a year.
Researchers have calculated the number of spiders per square meter in a particular habitat. They extrapolated data from field studies to estimate the total spider population on Earth. They then used these numbers to estimate how much food the creatures need.
They found that spiders consume roughly the same amount of food as all of the whales on the planet. This may be due to their opportunistic nature. The best guess is that spiders kill between 300 million and 550 million tons of prey every year.
In addition to killing large prey, spiders also have an impressive ability to survive for several weeks without food. They need to drink water, but they don’t need as much as humans do.
