Are Spiders Dangerous?

Spiders live in almost every part of the world. There are over 60 000 different species. We only know about half of them – we haven't yet studied the others.

Spiders are carnivores; they eat insects and other small animals. Most spiders kill their prey by injecting them with poison. They then spray the dead body with digestive juices and suck up the liquid. A row of fine hairs just inside the spider's mouth filters out any lumps. Other spiders miss out the poison stage and just spray the trapped insect with digestive juices. They digest the prey to death.

All spiders are terrifying to their prey but just a few are dangerous to humans. The black widow, the tarantulas, the brown recluse, the funnel web and the red back are some of the spiders to be avoided at all costs. The black widow spider is common in Europe and North America and is very poisonous. It kills one in every hundred people that it bites. Its venom is 15 times more poisonous than rattlesnake venom.