Are you on Team Snake, or Team Spider?


I know which side I’m on — the winning side, and that would be the spiders. Here’s a whole photo essay of spiders killing snakes. It’s a real David vs. Goliath matchup, and it seems the little guy (who is often Latrodectus — I really have to get some of those in my lab) typically wins. As the article says, “there are no recorded instances of a snake successfully biting and injecting venom into a spider.”

To be fair, though, that’s probably because of the gross mismatch in size. Spider kills a snake, sits on it for days trying to suck the juices out of it; snake kills a spider, chomp, gulp, it’s done and gone in a few seconds, providing fewer opportunities for a photo op.

Comments

  1. davidc1 says

    I once watched a wildlife doc about giant spiders that live in the South American rain forest .
    A snake ,i think it was a Fer De Lance ,it went into a hole in the ground thinking there was a small mammal
    living there ,turns out to be a giant spider ,long story short ,it killed the snake .

    Near the end of the programme ,some natives sat down to roast Tarantula .They ate her eggs as a type of roe ,
    even used it’s fangs as a tooth pick .
    At which point i fainted .

  2. hemidactylus says

    Team Serpent rules! Hisssssss! We go back to Eden and have the Reptilian Brain.

  3. microraptor says

    I’m probably some sort of heretic for liking both spiders and snakes, aren’t I?

  4. wsierichs says

    My take on it is that the spiders are practicing for their ultimate goal, when it’s humans, not snakes, that are webbed up and sucked to death. Today the snakes, tomorrow the world.

  5. blf says

    [screams and runs]

    Which direction?
    North is a marsh full of alligators, snakes, spiders, and quicksand.
    West is a forest full of bears, snakes, spiders, and stinging ants.
    South is a rocky fell, full of cougars, snakes, spiders, and steep drops.
    East are caves, full of bears, snakes, spiders, bats, and steep drops into cold lakes with carnivorous fish.
    Up is a difficult run, full of ballooning / parachuting spiders, flying sting ants, bees, murder hornets, and planes with snakes.
    Down is also a difficult run… similar to the Eastern caves with lots of added sticky mud.

    The best option might be to stay still?

  6. garysturgess says

    Well, I’m not afraid of spiders so much as I am of snakes. If it comes down to it, I can kill a spider fairly easily offering it few chances to bite me (of course, it could attack from surprise), but I have no such confidence with snakes; at the very least, I’d want some sort of tool.

    Of course I’m an Aussie so I’m not really sure fear of snakes (or spiders) counts as a phobia here.