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

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

Birds eating worms, bugs and other grubs

Birds eating worms, bugs and other grubs

A bird's gotta eat right and sing as they wake up at the crack of dawn, history shows those birds have a great chance of getting the worm. A by gosh, it would appear birds love to eat worms. I imagine they are a great source of protein!

As a child I read several of Roald Dahl's wonderful books - and the above picture of the mother bird feed her young chicks worms reminds me of Dahl's The Twits - they were a nasty couple who did mean thinks like feed the other a plate of worms disguised as spaghetti! A classic trick if you were a kid....

But you didn't come to Animals Eating Animals for an anecdote about childhood reading, you came for pictures of birds eating bug and grubs and some other critters right? Here you go friend, feast on this!

Kingfisher with a tasty worm

This picture of a sea bird shows it doing a fine job as a wrestles with a worm that is desperately trying to stay in its worm hole.

A crunch caterpillar eaten by a bird

The quick and the dead

Let's just presume this an early bird getting a worm

A shared lunch

Owl feasting a a big brown worm

This last picture shows that even owls know they can eat worms. While it's probably a stereotype that owls eat rats, it's clear they don't mind getting their beaks dirty foraging for worms in the earth.

Leave a Comment birds, bugs and critters, cricket, kingfisher, owl, worm

The early Owl gets the fat worm

The early Owl gets the fat worm!

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Baby bat eats a worm

I want to suck your worm?

Biologist Guido Pfalzer feeds an injured Leisler's Bat (Nyctalus leisleri) with a flour worm in the southern German city of Kaiserslautern. Pfalzer looks after injured bats and helps them recover before releasing them to the wild. You could say he's a bit batty!?

Image Source and 2nd

Leave a Comment bat, worm