Spider prey

Until last night, I was unaware that some spiders catch fish. I knew from years of watching nature documentaries that the goliath tarantula eats birds, but so does the orb weaver (top), in even more dramatic size scale. The fishing (or nursery web) spider in the bottom photo has nabbed a tadpole. My search for dramatic (unstaged) footage of spiders hunting and eating large prey yielded the results below. In general, they inject venom with their fangs which liquifies the meal.

• Jumping spider pouncing on a bee
• Fishing spider catching and eating a frog
• Goliath spider snares a mouse
• Orb web spider traps and coccoons a bat
• Goliath tarantula tackles, kills, and eats deadly fer-de-lance snake
• Tarantula ambushes giant centipede...but loses the battle

Spiders with 1" fangs - yikes - that's the stuff of nightmares!