--- title: These Spiders Eat Fish Twice Their Size description: And they live on every continent except America. Be afraid. canonical: https://time.com/2903233/these-spiders-eat-fish-twice-their-size/ author: Eliana Dockterman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-06-20T00:25:11.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:10:58.378Z og:title: These Spiders Eat Fish Twice Their Size og:description: And they live on every continent except America. Be afraid. og:url: https://time.com/2903233/these-spiders-eat-fish-twice-their-size/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbd7026241e99a76e/69869877e53ababadb4d3420/fish-eating-spider.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Fish Eating Spider og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: These Spiders Eat Fish Twice Their Size twitter:description: And they live on every continent except America. Be afraid. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbd7026241e99a76e/69869877e53ababadb4d3420/fish-eating-spider.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # These Spiders Eat Fish Twice Their Size  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Jun 20, 2014 12:25 AM UTC  Pisauridae spider, dolomedes sp, catching fish Pisauridae spider, dolomedes sp, catching fishAlastair Macewen—Getty Images  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Jun 20, 2014 12:25 AM UTC Didn’t think spiders were terrifying enough already? Guess what: now scientists have discovered that a ton of spiders can eat things over twice their size. Swimming things. These pescatarian spiders live on every continent except Antarctica, according to research [published in PLoS ONE](http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0099459) on Wednesday. Researchers in Australia and Switzerland reviewed reports on fish predation and found that these aggressive spiders are much more common than scientists originally believed. Fish-eating spiders belong to eight different taxonomic families and only one of the spiders lives underwater. The rest hang out (or “lurk,” if you will) by the water and usually eat insects but occasionally go for a larger appetizer, killing fish 2-6 cm in length, about 2.2 times the size of the spider. Their kill method is to wait on a rock for a fish to touch one of their legs before diving into the water and biting the neck of their prey, killing them. Then they drag the fish to land and devour it. So now we know how an epic battle between Spider-Man and Aqua Man would go down. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2903233/these-spiders-eat-fish-twice-their-size/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2903233/these-spiders-eat-fish-twice-their-size/"},"headline":"These Spiders Eat Fish Twice Their Size","datePublished":"2014-06-20T00:25:11.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:10:58.378Z","description":"And they live on every continent except Antarctica. Be afraid.","url":"https://time.com/2903233/these-spiders-eat-fish-twice-their-size/","keywords":["Newsfeed","animals"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbd7026241e99a76e/69869877e53ababadb4d3420/fish-eating-spider.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eliana Dockterman","jobTitle":"Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbd7026241e99a76e/69869877e53ababadb4d3420/fish-eating-spider.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Fish Eating Spider","caption":"Fish Eating Spider","creditText":"Alastair Macewen—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2903233/these-spiders-eat-fish-twice-their-size/","name":"These Spiders Eat Fish Twice Their Size"}}]}] ```