According to scientists, bat eating spiders are everywhere in the world, except for Antarctica. Discovery News reported that there are more than 1,200 species of bats in the world and they make up about one-fifth of all mammal species in the world.
They don't have many natural enemies except for owls, hawks and snakes but few creatures that don't have backbones have been known to eat bats. However, scientists have found out that spiders eating bats may be more than they originally thought.
"Recent studies of a web-building spider species (Argiope savignyi) and a tarantula species (Poecilotheria rufilata) both killing small bats led researchers to suggest that bat captures and kills due to spiders might be more frequent than previously thought. So they analyzed 100 years' worth of scientific reports, interviews of bat and spider researchers and the staff of bat hospitals, and scans of image and video sites. The search revealed 52 cases of bat-catching spiders worldwide," reported Discovery News.
Discovery News reported that 90 percent of bat-eating spiders live in warmer clients and about 40 percent of them live in the neotropics which is South America and the tropical regions of North America. A third live in Asia and more than a sixth live in Papua New Guinea and Australia.
The majority of the spider eating bat cases occurred when the spiders built webs such as giant tropical spiders whose legs are as long as 4 to 6 inches.
"In instances seen in Costa Rica and Panama, the spiders had built their webs near buildings inhabited by bat colonies. Bat-catching via spiderwebs was also witnessed particularly often in the parks and forests of the greater Hong Kong area," reported Discovery News.
Livescience reported that there has been 52 cases of bat-catching spiders around the world. Most of the spiders prey on bats that are small or insect-eating bats.
"Bats entangled in webs were usually 4 to 9.5 inches in wingspan, including some of the smallest species of bats in the world, and they sometimes died of exhaustion, starvation, dehydration or overheating - but there were many cases where spiders were seen actively attacking, killing and eating these victims," reported Livescience.
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