Buzz

27 million tons of spiders consume between 440-880 million tonnes of insects each year

Spider eating insect

Each year, about 27 million tons of spiders consume between 440-880 million tonnes of insects. This dwarfs the 440 million tonnes of meat and fish all the humans in the world eat each year.

Spider prey consumption is similar to the amount of food that all whale species eat annually— between 300-550 million tonnes.

By contrast, the annual food consumption of all the world’s seabirds is estimated at 70 million tonnes.