Not all spiders catch their prey by spinning webs; a surprising number of arachnids quite literally fish for their meals, snatching scaly animals sometimes twice their size.
In fact, a new scientific review found that fish-eating spiders lurk near rivers, ponds and swamps on every continent except Antarctica. They’ve lifted small catfish out of marshes in Ecuador; grabbed killifish out of nets in Cameroon; devoured dwarf fish in California aquariums; and stalked hatchery ponds in Oklahoma, continuing to kill fish even after eating their fill.
Arachnologist Martin Nyffeler, of the University of Basel in Switzerland, and fish ecologist Brad Pusey, of the University of Western Australia, pored over scientific papers, citizen reports and photos from around the world and collected 89 such instances of spiders eating fish. Their review was published on Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE.
Nyffeler has a history of studying the more exotic tastes of arachnids, which traditionally have been viewed as insectivores. He’s previously published papers on earthworm-eating spiders, slug-eating spiders and, most recently, bat-eating spiders.
Until now, only a handful of semiaquatic species from the Pisauridae family (or nursery web spiders) had been recognized as fish eaters, Nyffeler said.
