Spiders eat how much

A recent study by European scientists concluded that spiders eat between million and million tons of prey per year. Or the total weight of every human on the planet. Luckily, spiders eat insects for the most part, although the larger ones do also snack on larger creatures. The study, which was written by professors Martin Nyffeler and Klaus Birkhofer , noted there are 45, individual species of spider that have been identified thus far with a combined weight of around 25 million metric tons.

The study suggests that while there are an average of spiders per square meter around the globe, while in ideal conditions, the density can reach up to spiders per square meter. Nyffeler and Birkhofer used a pair of methods in their attempt to figure out how much spiders consume.

First, they used existing data to estimate that spiders eat around 10 per cent of their body weight on a daily basis. The second method involved data from various sources in which scientists counted the number of insects that spiders actually consumed.

This led to a total of between million and million metric tons. He noted a study which said the entire global adult human biomass was approximately million tonnes. World Europe. The world's spiders eat million tonnes of insects every year -- equivalent to the amount of meat and fish that humans consume over the same period, a study said Tuesday.

In the first analysis of its kind, researchers used data from 65 previous studies to estimate that a total of 25 million metric tonnes of spiders exist on Earth. Taking into account how much food spiders need to survive, the team then calculated the eight-legged creatures' annual haul of insects and other invertebrates. The researchers used two different methods to make the calculation: in the first, they used published data about the average spider biomass per square metre in seven different biome types.

Armed with that data, they theoretically calculated the annual food needs of the spiders contained in each biome. Second, they used published data on the annual prey kill per metre of spider communities in each biome. It's estimated that there are roughly 45, different species of spiders on this planet, which accounts for an estimated weight of around 25 million tonnes.

The wide variation in the estimate of how much spiders consume derives from the fact that prey kill can vary within ecosystems, which themselves vary. Science Voracious spiders eat as much as million tonnes of prey a year Spiders get a bad rap.

Seen as terrifying pests by many, these eight-legged creatures may be underappreciated: a new study has estimated just how much spiders consume annually and how essential they are to our environment.