The main diet of spiders consists mostly of insects, and sometimes frogs, mice, birds and even snakes.

And the Journal of Arachnology indicates that a group of researchers headed by Martin Neffler of the University of Basel decided to search for evidence that spiders also feed on animals, which is difficult to imagine. But there are many incidents that prove spiders attacking snakes, most of which end with the victory of spiders and eating snakes.

Researchers have published 319 such events, most of which occurred in the wild, and 22 in other confined spaces.

And it became clear to the research team, that spiders often feed on snakes, and they described more than 30 types of spiders that attack and kill snakes in the wild, and 11 types that kill snakes and eat them in confined places. And that spiders of the family Somaceae, which includes venomous spiders such as the black widow, is characterized by its small size (a little more than one centimeter long), so they usually choose their victims from small snakes. And 10 percent of the cases were snakes food for spiders of the tarantula family, which is characterized by its large size and feeds on birds, and 8.5 percent of the cases belong to spiders of the Nephilinae family, which feed on fish and bats.

The researchers discovered that the victims of these spiders are often snakes from the Ahnach family, which includes more than 60 percent of the species of snakes in the world. Regardless of the fact that most of the victims are newborn or small, there is plenty of evidence confirming the victory of spiders over large snakes that are no less than a meter in length. These large snakes feed on spiders of the tarantula family or of the Nephilinae family. The venomous black widow spiders defeat victims thirty times greater than them.

The researchers describe a remarkable and distinct incident, in which a Steatoda triangulosa spider fed a snake 355 times its size. Knowing that spider venom does not kill all snakes immediately, but sometimes after a few days.

The researchers point out that the majority of cases were ended by the victory of spiders, and only 1.5 percent of them were able to get rid of snakes and save themselves.