- Joined
- Jul 9, 2011
- Messages
- 2,759
- Points
- 48
interesting video graphics click:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...tically-eat-every-human-on-earth-in-one-year/
Spiders could theoretically eat every human on Earth in one year
By Christopher Ingraham March 28
Spiders are quite literally all around us. A recent entomological survey of North Carolina homes turned up spiders in 100 percent of them, including 68 percent of bathrooms and more than three-quarters of bedrooms. There's a good chance at least one spider is staring at you right now, sizing you up from a darkened corner of the room, eight eyes glistening in the shadows.
Spiders mostly eat insects, although some of the larger species have been known to snack on lizards, birds and even small mammals. Given their abundance and the voraciousness of their appetites, two European biologists recently wondered: 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 earlier this month, and the number they arrived at is frankly shocking: The world's spiders consume somewhere between 400 million and 800 million tons 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 tons 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 tons. Even if you tack on another 70 million-ish tons 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.
In other words, spiders could eat all of us and still be hungry.
via GIPHY
To arrive at this number Nyffler and Birkhofer did a lot of sophisticated estimation based on existing research into A) how many spiders live in a square meter of land for all the main habitat types on Earth, and B) the average amount of food consumed by spiders of different sizes in a given year.
These numbers yielded some interesting factoids on their own. For instance, one study estimated that global average spider density stands at about 131 spiders per square meter. Some habitats, like deserts and tundra, are home to fewer spiders. On the other hand, spider densities of 1,000 or more individuals per square meter have been observed under certain “favorable” conditions — since Nyffler and Birkhofer don't define what “favorable” means in this context, I'm going to assume it refers to dark, dusty places like the area under my bed.
via GIPHY
If you gathered up all the spiders on the planet and placed them on a very large scale, together they'd weigh about 25 million tons, according to Nyffler and Birkhofer. For comparison, the Titanic weighed about 52,000 tons. The mass of every spider on Earth today, in other words, is equivalent to 478 Titanics.
Spider biologists have also generally found that spiders consume approximately 10 percent of their body weight in food per day. That's equivalent to a 200-pound man eating 20 pounds of meat each day.
Conversely, it would take approximately 2,000 pounds of spiders to consume a 200-pound man in one day.
In the end, spiders' voracity actually works out to mankind's benefit. Since they primarily feast on bugs, their hunger means fewer pests in the garden, fewer mosquitoes in the yard and fewer flies in the house.
The Washington Post reached out to a spider for comment on this story. Its reply:
via GIPHY
http://gizmodo.com/the-amount-of-food-spiders-eat-each-year-will-haunt-you-1793258169
The Amount of Food Spiders Eat Each Year Will Haunt You for the Rest of Your Life
Ryan F. Mandelbaum
3/14/17 12:20pmFiled to: same
80
6
Image: David E. Hill, Peckham Society, Simpsonville, South Carolina
Spiders are already horrifying, with their eight beady little eyes and spindly legs and sticky webs. They also probably eat more meat than your mind can wrap your head around—more meat than humans eat, even.
Spider meal specialist Martin Nyffeler of the University of Basel, Switzerland decided, hey, let’s try and estimate the total weight of all of the food spiders around the world eat per year. Some data crunching resulted in a number so bafflingly high you’ll either squirm or thank the spiders for keeping us safe from all the other bugs. Maybe both.
Image: David E. Hill, Peckham Society, Simpsonville, South Carolina
That number: The world’s estimated 25 million metric tons of spiders eat between 300 and 800 million metric tons of food per year, according to estimates published today in the very silly-sounding journal The Science of Nature. (That almost feels like calling something the Ferrari of Lamborghinis in academic journal speak). That food consists mainly of insects, little non-insect bugs called springtails, and even small vertebrates. The researchers make several assessments, using the amount of food individual spiders need to eat, the number of insects they catch in their webs, and the number of insects they kill on the hunt.
Article preview thumbnail
First Scientific Account of a Tarantula Eating a Snake Is Pure Nightmare Fuel
Imagine the most elegant of dinner parties. The meal: a ground snake. Your guest: a tarantula. No…
Read more
The 300 to 800 million metric ton figure is pretty close to the mass of meat and fish humans eat per year—around 400 metric tons, according to the paper. It’s also equal to the mass of humans: There are 7.4 billion people on earth, and the average human’s weight is around 130 pounds. Converted to metric tons, that’s a bit over 400 million.
The idea to do this eye-opening calculation came from a book Nyffeler read 40 years ago, The World of Spiders by arachnologist William Bristowe in 1958, according to a prepared statement he passed along to Gizmodo. “In this book, Bristowe speculated that the weight of insects annually killed by the British spider population would exceed the combined weight of the British human population,” wrote Nyffeler. “This statement fascinated me very much. I decided that I would like to find out if Bristowe was correct with his speculation.”
Image: David E. Hill, Peckham Society, Simpsonville, South Carolina)
You might think this means spiders are helping our crops by eating all of the pests, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. “Instead spiders appear to play a significant ecological role as predators of insects in forests and undisturbed grasslands,” Nyffeler wrote. Very generally speaking, spiders don’t seem to eat as many bugs in agricultural areas because these heavily managed systems don’t have as many or as good an assortment of prey.
Sponsored
Our apologies for that horrible image. But hey, at least they aren’t eating you. Yet.
[The Science of Nature]
Recommended Stories
First Scientific Account of a Tarantula Eating a Snake Is Pure Nightmare Fuel
Watch Some Animals Eat Each Other While They Bone
Fish-Eating Spiders Are Everywhere
Ryan F. [email protected]@ryanfmandelbaum
Science writer at Gizmodo | I like physics and eating
Reply80 replies
Leave a reply
http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/28/15090046/spiders-eat-humans-consume-washington-post-study
Science
TL;DR
Spiders could theoretically eat every human on Earth in a year and that’s okay by me
20 comments
You’ve tried worrying about eating spiders in your sleep, now try worrying about being consumed by spiders
by Dami Lee@dami_lee Mar 28, 2017, 1:12pm EDT
share
tweet
Linkedin
The Washington Post declared today that “spiders could theoretically eat every human on Earth in one year.” Depending on your view of current events, this could actually be good news! The supporters of this change.org petition to Senator Al Franken titled, “Give Spiders All the Help They Need to Eat Every Human on Earth Within One Year” are certainly in favor of it.
Biologists Martin Nyffeler and Klaus Birkhofer bravely did the math that no one would, and published their findings in The Science of Nature that an estimated 400–800 million tons of prey are eaten annually by the global spider community. I enjoy the use of the phrasing “spider community” here because it lets me imagine the world’s spiders having a giant potluck to eat a shitload of insects. BYOB (bugs)!
"BYOB (bugs)!"
For comparison, there are 7 billion humans on the planet who eat a combined total of 400 million tons of meat and fish each year. According to this study, the total biomass of adult humans is 287 million tons, which means that spiders could feast on us at their spider potluck and there would still be some stragglers who’d be like, “I didn’t get to eat, this party is lame and I’m leaving.”
Here are some other spider facts related to this horrifying yet oddly comforting news:
A survey of urban and suburban homes declared that spiders live in 100 percent of North Carolina homes. They were found in 68 percent of bathrooms and more than three-quarters of bedrooms, so I will be sleeping in the backyard tonight.
If you’re a total sicko and you combine all of the world’s spiders, they’d weigh 25 million tons.
The Titanic weighed about 52,000 tons.
Every spider on Earth combined weighs as much as 478 Titanics.
Every spider on Earth, combined, could kill Leonardo DiCaprio 478 times.
Spiders eat about 10 percent of their body weight every day. That's about equivalent to a 200-pound man eating 20 pounds of meat each day, which sounds like an average day for The Rock.
Based on the above, it would take 2,000 pounds of spiders to eat a 200-pound man in a day. We have to protect The Rock at all costs.
We fret about the number of spiders we consume in our sleep, yet have you ever stopped to think about how many of us they could consume? It’s spiders vs. humans in this spider-eat-human world, and we’re outnumbered, baby.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...tically-eat-every-human-on-earth-in-one-year/
Spiders could theoretically eat every human on Earth in one year
By Christopher Ingraham March 28
Spiders are quite literally all around us. A recent entomological survey of North Carolina homes turned up spiders in 100 percent of them, including 68 percent of bathrooms and more than three-quarters of bedrooms. There's a good chance at least one spider is staring at you right now, sizing you up from a darkened corner of the room, eight eyes glistening in the shadows.
Spiders mostly eat insects, although some of the larger species have been known to snack on lizards, birds and even small mammals. Given their abundance and the voraciousness of their appetites, two European biologists recently wondered: 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 earlier this month, and the number they arrived at is frankly shocking: The world's spiders consume somewhere between 400 million and 800 million tons 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 tons 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 tons. Even if you tack on another 70 million-ish tons 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.
In other words, spiders could eat all of us and still be hungry.
via GIPHY
To arrive at this number Nyffler and Birkhofer did a lot of sophisticated estimation based on existing research into A) how many spiders live in a square meter of land for all the main habitat types on Earth, and B) the average amount of food consumed by spiders of different sizes in a given year.
These numbers yielded some interesting factoids on their own. For instance, one study estimated that global average spider density stands at about 131 spiders per square meter. Some habitats, like deserts and tundra, are home to fewer spiders. On the other hand, spider densities of 1,000 or more individuals per square meter have been observed under certain “favorable” conditions — since Nyffler and Birkhofer don't define what “favorable” means in this context, I'm going to assume it refers to dark, dusty places like the area under my bed.
via GIPHY
If you gathered up all the spiders on the planet and placed them on a very large scale, together they'd weigh about 25 million tons, according to Nyffler and Birkhofer. For comparison, the Titanic weighed about 52,000 tons. The mass of every spider on Earth today, in other words, is equivalent to 478 Titanics.
Spider biologists have also generally found that spiders consume approximately 10 percent of their body weight in food per day. That's equivalent to a 200-pound man eating 20 pounds of meat each day.
Conversely, it would take approximately 2,000 pounds of spiders to consume a 200-pound man in one day.
In the end, spiders' voracity actually works out to mankind's benefit. Since they primarily feast on bugs, their hunger means fewer pests in the garden, fewer mosquitoes in the yard and fewer flies in the house.
The Washington Post reached out to a spider for comment on this story. Its reply:
via GIPHY
http://gizmodo.com/the-amount-of-food-spiders-eat-each-year-will-haunt-you-1793258169
The Amount of Food Spiders Eat Each Year Will Haunt You for the Rest of Your Life
Ryan F. Mandelbaum
3/14/17 12:20pmFiled to: same
80
6
Image: David E. Hill, Peckham Society, Simpsonville, South Carolina
Spiders are already horrifying, with their eight beady little eyes and spindly legs and sticky webs. They also probably eat more meat than your mind can wrap your head around—more meat than humans eat, even.
Spider meal specialist Martin Nyffeler of the University of Basel, Switzerland decided, hey, let’s try and estimate the total weight of all of the food spiders around the world eat per year. Some data crunching resulted in a number so bafflingly high you’ll either squirm or thank the spiders for keeping us safe from all the other bugs. Maybe both.
Image: David E. Hill, Peckham Society, Simpsonville, South Carolina
That number: The world’s estimated 25 million metric tons of spiders eat between 300 and 800 million metric tons of food per year, according to estimates published today in the very silly-sounding journal The Science of Nature. (That almost feels like calling something the Ferrari of Lamborghinis in academic journal speak). That food consists mainly of insects, little non-insect bugs called springtails, and even small vertebrates. The researchers make several assessments, using the amount of food individual spiders need to eat, the number of insects they catch in their webs, and the number of insects they kill on the hunt.
Article preview thumbnail
First Scientific Account of a Tarantula Eating a Snake Is Pure Nightmare Fuel
Imagine the most elegant of dinner parties. The meal: a ground snake. Your guest: a tarantula. No…
Read more
The 300 to 800 million metric ton figure is pretty close to the mass of meat and fish humans eat per year—around 400 metric tons, according to the paper. It’s also equal to the mass of humans: There are 7.4 billion people on earth, and the average human’s weight is around 130 pounds. Converted to metric tons, that’s a bit over 400 million.
The idea to do this eye-opening calculation came from a book Nyffeler read 40 years ago, The World of Spiders by arachnologist William Bristowe in 1958, according to a prepared statement he passed along to Gizmodo. “In this book, Bristowe speculated that the weight of insects annually killed by the British spider population would exceed the combined weight of the British human population,” wrote Nyffeler. “This statement fascinated me very much. I decided that I would like to find out if Bristowe was correct with his speculation.”
Image: David E. Hill, Peckham Society, Simpsonville, South Carolina)
You might think this means spiders are helping our crops by eating all of the pests, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. “Instead spiders appear to play a significant ecological role as predators of insects in forests and undisturbed grasslands,” Nyffeler wrote. Very generally speaking, spiders don’t seem to eat as many bugs in agricultural areas because these heavily managed systems don’t have as many or as good an assortment of prey.
Sponsored
Our apologies for that horrible image. But hey, at least they aren’t eating you. Yet.
[The Science of Nature]
Recommended Stories
First Scientific Account of a Tarantula Eating a Snake Is Pure Nightmare Fuel
Watch Some Animals Eat Each Other While They Bone
Fish-Eating Spiders Are Everywhere
Ryan F. [email protected]@ryanfmandelbaum
Science writer at Gizmodo | I like physics and eating
Reply80 replies
Leave a reply
http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/28/15090046/spiders-eat-humans-consume-washington-post-study
Science
TL;DR
Spiders could theoretically eat every human on Earth in a year and that’s okay by me
20 comments
You’ve tried worrying about eating spiders in your sleep, now try worrying about being consumed by spiders
by Dami Lee@dami_lee Mar 28, 2017, 1:12pm EDT
share
tweet
The Washington Post declared today that “spiders could theoretically eat every human on Earth in one year.” Depending on your view of current events, this could actually be good news! The supporters of this change.org petition to Senator Al Franken titled, “Give Spiders All the Help They Need to Eat Every Human on Earth Within One Year” are certainly in favor of it.
Biologists Martin Nyffeler and Klaus Birkhofer bravely did the math that no one would, and published their findings in The Science of Nature that an estimated 400–800 million tons of prey are eaten annually by the global spider community. I enjoy the use of the phrasing “spider community” here because it lets me imagine the world’s spiders having a giant potluck to eat a shitload of insects. BYOB (bugs)!
"BYOB (bugs)!"
For comparison, there are 7 billion humans on the planet who eat a combined total of 400 million tons of meat and fish each year. According to this study, the total biomass of adult humans is 287 million tons, which means that spiders could feast on us at their spider potluck and there would still be some stragglers who’d be like, “I didn’t get to eat, this party is lame and I’m leaving.”
Here are some other spider facts related to this horrifying yet oddly comforting news:
A survey of urban and suburban homes declared that spiders live in 100 percent of North Carolina homes. They were found in 68 percent of bathrooms and more than three-quarters of bedrooms, so I will be sleeping in the backyard tonight.
If you’re a total sicko and you combine all of the world’s spiders, they’d weigh 25 million tons.
The Titanic weighed about 52,000 tons.
Every spider on Earth combined weighs as much as 478 Titanics.
Every spider on Earth, combined, could kill Leonardo DiCaprio 478 times.
Spiders eat about 10 percent of their body weight every day. That's about equivalent to a 200-pound man eating 20 pounds of meat each day, which sounds like an average day for The Rock.
Based on the above, it would take 2,000 pounds of spiders to eat a 200-pound man in a day. We have to protect The Rock at all costs.
We fret about the number of spiders we consume in our sleep, yet have you ever stopped to think about how many of us they could consume? It’s spiders vs. humans in this spider-eat-human world, and we’re outnumbered, baby.
