Photos of spiders eating things at least 5 times their size!

I've got my eyes on you, Jack

It's amazing that spiders can eat animals bigger than themselves...

A common perception is that spiders like to eat flies that have been silly enough to fly into their webs and traps. This is all true but you can add that moths and other flying insects like butterflies also make up part of a healthy spider diet.

The truth is that spiders will eat just about anything their 8 legs can grab onto.

Here's some cool pictures of what some spiders have been caught eating, including the odd lizard, worm and even a bird!

Damn freaks!

Right?

We'll start our run with an early spider gets the worm joke: yep, this spider is munching down on a juicy worm. How do I know worms are juicy? I got paid a dollar once by my brother to eat one.

Sucker!

I would have done it for 50 cents!

Worm for breakfast

Now we have the classic tarantula spider eating a dead chicken picture. 

I'd be surprised if this huge spider managed to bring down the chicken all by himself but none-the-less, it's a spider eating a chicken shot! I hope it's not a staged photo...

Tarantula eating a spider

You'd think lizards and geckos would be faster than a spider right? Not so in these two pictures.

The picture below appears to be showing a spider carrying a lizard up a door or a window. Kind of reminds me of this python pulling up a kangaroo actually! Either way, that's a strong spider.

Spider carrying a lizard up a door frame

Lizard for Lunch?

Now this is where our what do spiders eat photo essay gets a little weird...

Can you imagine a spider eating a snake? Can you imagine a Spider reading the meaning of U2's One song lyrics?

Well, it looks like this little fella managed to capture a grass snake of some kind in his web and made him a snack.

Spider eats a snake!

Hey Jimmy Jangles, that's only a little snake! It hardly counts! Okay then dear reader, how about a bigger snake being eaten by a spider? That image does kind of look like a set up though eh?

Snake eaten by a spider

In the spider kingdom there's one spider that everyone knows the name of: Taranatula! And here's a picture of one eating a small mouse. 

Tarantula eating a mouse

So far we've had the spiders eating the worms, spiders, mice and and the odd chicken, but I've saved my favorite picture till last. Spider eating a bird. It's my favorite because that is one big bird and that is one mean looking spider. And that bird must have put up a decent fight right? So imagine how tough the spider is!

Bird being eaten by a spider

Still interested in spiders? Check out this myth about spiders that eat camels!

2 comments birds, lizards, mouse, snake, spider, worm

Huntsman spider eating a pygmy possum

Doing the rounds virally at the moment is these pictures of a hungry Huntsman spider eating a  pygmy possum!

Found in a Mt Field Ski lodge in Tasmania, Australia. 

Basically, the possum is the size of a large mouse.

There are many kinds of Huntsman Spiders, they are found all around the world and are so named for their speed and mode of hunting.

This photo reminds of that time this giant orb weaver caught a bird...

Leave a Comment possum, spider

Katipo bites a trouser snake!

Check out this story of how a Katipo spider took on a trouser snake!

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A venomous katipo spider bite on his penis was the high price a tourist paid for a skinny-dip at a Northland beach. The 22-year-old Canadian left his clothes in the sand dunes while he went for his nude swim and slept on his return, according to a report on the case in today's online NZ Medical Journal.
"He woke to find his penis swollen and painful with a red mark on the shaft suggestive of a bite. He rapidly developed generalised muscle pains, fever, headache, photophobia [light sensitivity] and vomiting," wrote Dr Nigel Harrison and colleagues who treated him at Dargaville and Whangarei hospitals.

By the time the man reached Dargaville Hospital, his penis was severely swollen, his blood pressure was up and his heart beat racing.

Chest pain and other symptoms developed the next morning and it was presumed he had been bitten by a katipo. He was treated with anti-venom medicine and rapidly improved.

However, heart problems persisted and he was treated at Whangarei Hospital and Auckland Hospital before returning to Canada.

Katipo spiders are known to have a highly specialised habitat in New Zealand sand dunes and will bite only rarely, and in defence.

This was the first known case of myocarditis, or heart inflammation, caused by a bite, Dr Harrison said. A prompt diagnosis and the use of anti-venom resulted in a good outcome for the tourist, he said.

Source
 
Wikipedia has a good description of the Katiopo sider:
 
Latrodectus katipo, the katipo, is an endangered species of spider native to New Zealand. A member of the genus Latrodectus, it is related to the Australian redback spider, and the North American black widow spiders.
 
The species is venomous to humans, capable of delivering a comparatively dangerous spider bite. Katipo is a Māori name and means "night-stinger". It is a small to medium-sized spider with the female having a distinctive black body with a white bordered red stripe on its back.
 
North of 39°15'S females do not have a red stripe and are all black. The male is much smaller than the female and quite different in appearance, being white with black stripes and red diamond shaped markings. Katipo have a narrow habitat, being only found living in sand dunes close to the seashore.
 
They range throughout most of coastal New Zealand, but are not found at the southernmost regions. Spinning an irregular tangled web amongst dune plants or other debris, they feed mainly on ground dwelling insects.
 
And now occasional trouser snakes.
 
Check out this story of a Spider eating a bird!

Leave a Comment snakes, spider

Fireflies continue to light up even though caught in a spider's web

A keen Redditer shared their footage of two fireflies caught in a spider's web.

Nothing unusual about that, save for the fact that the flies have been bound for eating later - and are still alive and flashing!

Leave a Comment fireflies, spider

Amazing pictures of Venus Fly Trap plants eating all kinds of animals including a frog!

It's a Trap!

Awesome photos of Venus Fly Trap plants eating flies and spiders...

Venus Fly Traps were one of the most fascinating things I ever saw as a child.

We had one in the kitchen and my Dad showed me how to taunt them by poking them with a pencil to get them to close shut.

He once pretended to get his finger eaten by one too which totally terrified me. The joke was on him though as later that day there was a terrible chainsaw accident which we don't really talk about.

So for those not in the loop, the Venus Fly Trap (also Venus's Flytrap or Venus' Flytrap) is a carnivorous plant that catches and digests animal prey.

Their diet usually consist of insects and spiders.

And a note, yes, plants are not animals, I know......

Caught in a Trap

As I'm sure Admiral Akbar would point out, the Venus' trapping structure is formed by the terminal portion of each of the plant's leaves and is triggered by tiny hairs on their inner surfaces.

When an insect, worm or spider walking along the leaves contacts a hair, the trap will close if a different individual hair is contacted generally within twenty seconds of the first strike.

This is a kind of fail safe mechanism to preserve the Venus Trap's energy by preventing it from catching items with no nutritional value.

Any way's you came here for the action shots of Venus Fly Traps eating their prey like worms and flies so here you go:

Flies caught in a trap

Single Fly Caught in the Venus Fly Trap

 Here's a treat for every hungry Venus Trap, a frog! How the hell the plant was strong enough to keep this jumping fellow, I don't know but I think it's a pretty impressive effort!

Frog's Legs on the Menu tonight!

I bet this grasshopper totally regrets jumping around willy nilly now!

Grasshopper caught in a very hungry trap

Silhouette of a bee in the plant's trap

I think the below picture is a case of the early Venus Fly Trap gets the worm!

Worm about to get snapped in the trap! Side Bar: Bat eating a worm

Leave a Comment frog, insects, rat, spider, worm

So we're doing spiders eating fish now

We spied these pictures and thought they were pretty amazing. We knew spiders could catch and eat birds, and if that act wasn't impressive enough, here's spiders catching fish for their supper. We have no idea how a fish manages to get themselves into positions that a spider can catch them, let alone ponder the mystery of how a spider ever thought to catch a fish in the first place!

You can maybe imagine how the conversation went. "Hey Bob, I'm sick of catching and eating flies and moths in my web. You wanna go fishing this weekend? We could take the ute, have some beers, should be a great lark and who know's maybe we will actually catch some fish too!"

Leave a Comment fish, spider

Spider eating a flying dragon

You've got to wonder how this happened....

This dragon fly looks like he flew too close to the sun and ended up in the jaws of this spider. 

Leave a Comment dragon fly, spider

Spider attacking a bumblebee caught in its web is thwarted by a heroic bee who came in and attacked the spider!

While this is no lions attack a wildebeest which is then attacked by a crocodile video, this one of a bee caught in a spider’s web is pretty cool. 

The spider and bumble bee are duelling for the bee’s life. after the bee was entrapped in the spider's web. The odds are tipped in the bee’s favour when another bumblebee comes into to save the day by stinging the spider with a precise jab with its stinger at which point the spider wisely decides to withdraw. No lunch for him!

Check out the video which was caught by a dude using his iphone camera.

Leave a Comment bee, spider

Hornet eats an Australian Spider

From the Reddit files, a hornet dragging away a hand sized spider for good eatin' later on. Keep up the good work Australia. You guys are awesome. Just spider eating a bird kind of awesome. Like, even the pets aren't safe.

Leave a Comment spider

What do bats eat?

Bat kissing a frog

Pictures of bats eating frogs and giant spiders

Bat Out of Hell is my favourite album of all time (OK, perhaps second to U2's Achtung Baby) so it was amusing when they played it at work today and I thought, why hasn't Animals Eating Animals featured bats eating things yet?

Perhaps you may have asked your self, what do bats eat?

And so here we are with images of fruit bats and other batty fellows eating things like frogs, watermelon and scarily large centipede.

Here's a bat eating a green cricket, and below is a poor spider getting a some fat fangs to his abdomen which almost seems ironic. Don't you think?

This picture below almost looks staged, but it appears to be a bat flying whilst holding a centipede in his mouth.

People often think of bats as bloofy thirsty monsters - and you can thank Bram Stoker for that, but the truth is that bats often eat noting but fruit!

And here's a picture of The Great Detective Batman eating his eggs:

Want more? How about this role reversal of a spider eating a bat that it caught in it's web? That must have been an epic food fight!

And now for something completely different, check out these hungry anaconda snakes!

Leave a Comment bat, bugs and critters, centipede, cricket, frog, spider