The eternal battle between spiders and humanity has just taken a terrifying twist with the recent discovery that every man, woman and child on this planet could easily be consumed by spiders within the time span of a year.
… Sorry, that was kind of forward.
Let us back up.
A recent entomological survey that attempted to gauge how many spiders live in close proximity to humans has inspired some interesting scientific probing and research findings in the spider scientist community, like the one we mentioned above.
In particular, the finding that one-fucking-hundred percent of homes have spiders in them — including 68 percent of bathrooms and more than three-quarters of bedrooms — was of interest to two European biologists named Martin Nyffeler and Klaus Birkhofer. It got them thinking: if there are that many motherfucking spiders on this motherfucking plane, could they feasibly overpower our superior species?
Martin and Klaus looked to the typical spider diet for answers. While enjoying the delicate snack that is your leg skin is certainly part of the typical spider's menu, they mostly eat insects. However, of the larger, beefier species have been known to wine and dine on lizards, birds and even small mammals. Given their abundance and their insatiable appetite for paralyzed, half-dead flesh-things, how much food does the world's entire spider population actually eat in a single year? More importantly, who cares?
The pair of researchers published their estimate in Science of Nature earlier this month, and the number they arrived at is nothing less than completely and totally horrifying. Apparently, spiders eat between 400 million and 800 million tons of prey in any given year.
Did you hear that? Hundred. Million. Tons.
Do you know how much that is? That's at least as much food as all 7 billion humans on the planet eat combined — our humble species watches our waistline with just 400 million tons of meat and fish each year.
For a more nightmarish comparison, the weight of all living adult humans on Earth is around 287 million tons. Even if you heap on the 70 million tons of children to that meat-pile, it's still nowhere near equal to the total amount of food spiders eat every year.
That means spiders eat more food than the total weight of humankind. That also means spiders could, quite comfortably, eat humankind … and still have room for leftovers.
So, not only are they vile, bothersome pests that must be eradicated with tennis shoes at every chance, they're also fat.
Oh, and the average amount of spiders per square meter is 131 … although there are much more in "favorable" climates, such as the one under your bed.
Have fun trying to sleep ever!
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