Good Science

Nothing to add here…

“If you were to tally up all the food eaten by the world’s entire spider population in a single year, how much would it be?

Martin Nyffeler and Klaus Birkhofer published their estimate in the journal the Science of Nature this month, and the number they arrived at is frankly shocking.

The world’s spiders consume between 400 and 800 million tonnes of prey in any given year. That means that spiders eat at least as much meat as all 7 billion humans on the planet combined, who the authors note consume about 400 million tonnes of meat and fish each year.

Or, for a slightly more disturbing comparison, the total biomass of all adult humans on earth is estimated to be 287 million tonnes. Even if you tack on another 70 million or so tonnes to account for the weight of kids, it’s still not equal to the total amount of food eaten by spiders in a given year, exceeding the total weight of humanity.”