By Here’s a scary thought: a spider is probably looking at you right now. That’s right. In a quiet corner, under the sofa, behind the filing cabinet and – more likely than all – in the bathroom.
A recent entomological study of North Carolina published in an academic journal called Science and Nature, found spiders in 100 percent of the homes they surveyed. That number includes 68 percent of bathrooms and almost 75 percent of bedrooms.
The study found that spiders across the globe consume between 400 and 800 million tonnes of prey each year, they would theoretically be capable of eating the equivalent of seven billion humans. So yeah spiders could eat the entire human race and will still be hungry! Brilliant.
According to the study, if you were to place all the spiders in the world on one scale, they would weight about 25 million tonnes. That’s the same weight as approximately five million average-sized elephants, or 478 titanics.
Spider biologists have also discovered that spiders generally consume about 10 percent of their body weight in food each day. That’s equivalent to a 200-pound man eating 20-pounds of meat per day. Which unless you’re a professional steak-eater in Texas, is an insane amount.
Although they have the potential to eat all mankind and dominate our planet, spiders are actually pretty great for humans. They predominately eat insects, their hunger means less mosquitos at the beach, less bugs in the garden, less flies in the chardonnay… you get the idea.
So fear not fellow humans, us and the spiders can carry on living in pure harmony. Peace.