Charles Choi,
LiveScience Contributor
Date: 15 March
2013 Time: 03:19 PM ET
There's only
one place in the world to escape bat-catching spiders: Antarctica .
These arachnids ensnare and pounce on bats everywhere else in the world,
researchers say.
Bats rank
among the most successful groups
of mammals, with the more than 1,200 species of bats comprising about
one-fifth of all mammal species. Other than owls, hawks and snakes, bats have
few natural enemies.
Still, invertebrates
— creatures without backbones — have been known to dine on bats. For instance,
giant centipedes in a cave in Venezuela
were seen killing and eating bats, and the arachnids known as whip spiders were
spotted feeding on dead bats in caves of the Caribbean .
Cockroaches have been observed feeding on bat pups that have fallen to the
floor of caves.
Bat-eating
spiders are common and apparently creep around every continent, except Antarctica , devouring various bat species. Here, a dead
bat (Rhinolophus cornutus orii) caught in the web of a female Nephila
pilipes on Amami-Oshima Island ,
Japan
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