This Spider Just Ate a Bat, and Now I'll Never Go Outside Again

Philip Ellis
Photo credit: Danny R. Buxton - Getty Images
Photo credit: Danny R. Buxton - Getty Images

From Men's Health

A resident of Poteet, Texas stepped outside her home and found a spider casually dining on an entire bat in its web. In quite possibly the least relatable move of all time, instead of running for the hills like any sane person, Annette Alaniz Guajardo captured the moment in a series of photos, which she shared with ABC11.

The jaw-dropping images confirm what many have suspected for some time: nature is terrifying.

The spider was later identified as Argiope aurantia, which translates from Latin to "gilded silver-face," and not "the stuff of actual nightmares" as you might have thought. It can be found across the continental United States, Canada, Mexico, and Central America, and have been known to spin their distinctive X-shaped webs in the plants in back yards. In other words, they are everywhere.

However, while the spider might occasionally like to feast on defenceless, partially sighted winged mammals who were just trying to get on with their day, experts assure us that they do not eat humans. As far as we know.

"They have been known to catch birds and other larger animals in their webs and eat them," says Matt Bertone, an Entomologist with the NCSU Plant Disease and Insect Clinic, which isn't quite the ringing endorsement of safety that I was hoping for.

This isn't the first time a carnivorous spider has given the entire internet a case of the the heebie-jeebies (to borrow a medical term). Back in June, a couple in Australia managed to snap a truly nightmarish photo of a huntsman spider chowing down on a pygmy possum, creating what looked like an uncanny, Cthulu-esque monster.

Maybe these spiders are developing a taste for larger mammals, and we should be seriously worried. Or maybe it was just cheat day. Either way, I'm never going outside again.

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