Widow spiders are eating snakes all over the planet, shocking study says.
Widow spiders are eating snakes all over the planet, shocking study says . Indiana Jones might be asking, 'Why did it have to be spiders?' after reading a new report indicating its not uncommon for arachnids to kill and devour snakes. Poring over scientific research, news reports and even social media, Martin Nyffeler, a spider expert at the University of Basel in Switzerland, and University of Georgia herpetologist J. Whitfield Gibbons found more than 300 instances of spiders smiting snakes 'I was surprised that so many different spider groups are capable of killing and eating snakes,' Nyffeler told National Geographic. 'I was surprised that so many different snake species are occasionally killed by spiders.' While reports of serpenticide came from every continent (except Antarctica), half were in North America and another 30 percent came from Australia. And a spider family known as theridiidae, which includes the black widow, took down the most snakes