Humans have long been afraid of spiders because of their sheer creepiness, but now you have to be afraid they’ll steal your food too. Research of a spider species that lives near water, shows that these special arachnids use a powerful poison to kill fish over twice their size. Details of the study by a Swiss-Australian team appear in the academic journal Plos One.
Martin Nyffeler from the University of Basel in Switzerland, along with Bradley Pusey from the University of Western Australia, gathered data for the study, which shows that as many as five spider families have been observed eating small fish in the wild. Three more families contain spider species that catch fish in laboratory conditions.
These semi-aquatic arachnids typically dwell at the outskirts of shallow freshwater streams, ponds, or swamps. Some are even capable of swimming, diving, and walking on the water surface! The spiders wait on rocks for the fish, before using their neurotoxins and enzymes to kill and digest their aquatic prey. Yikes!
The defenseless fish is then dragged to a dry place where it becomes the spider’s meal. Feasting usually lasts several hours.
Spiders are living grand!