A spider feeding on a bat may sound strange and taken straight out of science fiction. But researchers have reported such an event from Kerala.
It was a giant wood spider ( Nephila pilipes ) that stunned the researchers of the Kerala Agricultural University, Thrissur, through its surprising feeding habits. The spider was caught feeding on a Vespertilionid bat on the University campus.
The “Giant golden silk orb weavers of genus Nephila feed primarily on small insects like jewel beetles. However, they have been observed to go for large catches like cicadas, moths, grasshoppers, [and even] bats, fish, frog, lizards, snakes and rats,” according to a report published in a recent issue of the journal Current Science .
Of the 52 reported events of a spider eating a bat, only two were reported from India, including one from Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary in Kerala. The first report of bat being caught in a spider web was noted in 1842.
The insectivorous bats occupy a relatively safe position in the food web, usually being predated upon only by owls, hawks and snakes. Only a few people who study bats (chiropterologists) and arachnologists (who study spiders) have ever reported a bat being predated upon by a spider in the field.
The bat species that was preyed upon was identified as one belonging to a Pipistrellus species of Vespertilionidae family. The head of the bat could not be recovered for cranial and dental character examination as the spider had already eaten the bat’s head. Hence, the species-level identification of the bat could not be confirmed, it was reported.
The spiders that dominate bat-predation belong to the Mygalomorph family, Theraphosidae , and the aranaeomorph families Nephilidae, Araneidae and Sparassidae . Most of the bats captured by spiders belong to the families Vespertilionidae and Emballonuridae .
In all the two cases of spiders feeding on bats reported from India, the prey belonged to the Pipistrellus species, indicating that the large spiders were probably a potential predator of the small-sized bats of the family Vespertilionidae , observed the authors.
The spider web was on a tree at height of about 2 metres from the ground. The presence of human beings near its web, it appeared, might have deterred the spider from completing its feed, the authors note.
