Bat Predation by Spiders
In this paper more than 50 incidences of bats being captured by spiders are reviewed. Bat-catching spiders have been reported from virtually every continent with the exception of Antarctica (∼90% of the incidences occurring in the warmer areas of the globe between latitude 30° N and 30° S). Most rep...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:3596325 2023-05-15T14:05:20+02:00 Bat Predation by Spiders Nyffeler, Martin Knörnschild, Mirjam 2013-03-13 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3596325 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23516436 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0058120 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3596325 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23516436 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0058120 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Research Article Text 2013 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0058120 2013-09-04T21:03:58Z In this paper more than 50 incidences of bats being captured by spiders are reviewed. Bat-catching spiders have been reported from virtually every continent with the exception of Antarctica (∼90% of the incidences occurring in the warmer areas of the globe between latitude 30° N and 30° S). Most reports refer to the Neotropics (42% of observed incidences), Asia (28.8%), and Australia-Papua New Guinea (13.5%). Bat-catching spiders belong to the mygalomorph family Theraphosidae and the araneomorph families Nephilidae, Araneidae, and Sparassidae. In addition to this, an attack attempt by a large araneomorph hunting spider of the family Pisauridae on an immature bat was witnessed. Eighty-eight percent of the reported incidences of bat catches were attributable to web-building spiders and 12% to hunting spiders. Large tropical orb-weavers of the genera Nephila and Eriophora in particular have been observed catching bats in their huge, strong orb-webs (of up to 1.5 m diameter). The majority of identifiable captured bats were small aerial insectivorous bats, belonging to the families Vespertilionidae (64%) and Emballonuridae (22%) and usually being among the most common bat species in their respective geographic area. While in some instances bats entangled in spider webs may have died of exhaustion, starvation, dehydration, and/or hyperthermia (i.e., non-predation death), there were numerous other instances where spiders were seen actively attacking, killing, and eating the captured bats (i.e., predation). This evidence suggests that spider predation on flying vertebrates is more widespread than previously assumed. Text Antarc* Antarctica PubMed Central (PMC) PLoS ONE 8 3 e58120 |
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Research Article Nyffeler, Martin Knörnschild, Mirjam Bat Predation by Spiders |
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In this paper more than 50 incidences of bats being captured by spiders are reviewed. Bat-catching spiders have been reported from virtually every continent with the exception of Antarctica (∼90% of the incidences occurring in the warmer areas of the globe between latitude 30° N and 30° S). Most reports refer to the Neotropics (42% of observed incidences), Asia (28.8%), and Australia-Papua New Guinea (13.5%). Bat-catching spiders belong to the mygalomorph family Theraphosidae and the araneomorph families Nephilidae, Araneidae, and Sparassidae. In addition to this, an attack attempt by a large araneomorph hunting spider of the family Pisauridae on an immature bat was witnessed. Eighty-eight percent of the reported incidences of bat catches were attributable to web-building spiders and 12% to hunting spiders. Large tropical orb-weavers of the genera Nephila and Eriophora in particular have been observed catching bats in their huge, strong orb-webs (of up to 1.5 m diameter). The majority of identifiable captured bats were small aerial insectivorous bats, belonging to the families Vespertilionidae (64%) and Emballonuridae (22%) and usually being among the most common bat species in their respective geographic area. While in some instances bats entangled in spider webs may have died of exhaustion, starvation, dehydration, and/or hyperthermia (i.e., non-predation death), there were numerous other instances where spiders were seen actively attacking, killing, and eating the captured bats (i.e., predation). This evidence suggests that spider predation on flying vertebrates is more widespread than previously assumed. |
format |
Text |
author |
Nyffeler, Martin Knörnschild, Mirjam |
author_facet |
Nyffeler, Martin Knörnschild, Mirjam |
author_sort |
Nyffeler, Martin |
title |
Bat Predation by Spiders |
title_short |
Bat Predation by Spiders |
title_full |
Bat Predation by Spiders |
title_fullStr |
Bat Predation by Spiders |
title_full_unstemmed |
Bat Predation by Spiders |
title_sort |
bat predation by spiders |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2013 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3596325 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23516436 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0058120 |
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Antarc* Antarctica |
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Antarc* Antarctica |
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3596325 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23516436 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0058120 |
op_rights |
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0058120 |
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PLoS ONE |
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8 |
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e58120 |
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