Stanley Whithers  age 10 of Green Bay; WI for his question:

Are there any animals that eat spiders?

We tend to think of the spider as a bloodthirsty ogre who lurks in a corner to devour the unlucky creatures trapped in his web. She seems too successful at trapping other insects to worry much about being eaten herself. But actually this is far from the truth,

The spider, like every other creature has her enemies. That is how Nature keeps a balance between the living creatures upon the earth. The little crickets eat the grass and are themselves eaten by weasels, birds and other insects. Otherwise the world would be too full of crickets by summer’s end. The toads are eaten by birds, snakes and weasels   or the world would soon have too many toads for the toad's food supply. Whether we like it or not this fact, being eaten is the scheme of things in the animal kingdom.

And the little spider does her share to make the grim plan work. She traps and devours pesky flies and insects. In her turn she is food for other creatures. Actually, there are about 20,000 different kinds of spider. They live on the ground, on rocks, on sandy beaches in leafy trees and some of them have learned to keep house under water. Each has her own kind of web and each traps her quota bf insects,

As food, the spider is thought to be delicious by birds frogs toads, small mammals, certain insects and certain fish. The frogs and toads dart out their long sticky tongues to catch the numberless spiders running on the ground. It has been estimated that a toad devours 1000 spiders during a season, a frog about 300, Almost any bird annoys a fat, juicy spider for lunch. They are snapped up from leaves, from the ground and as they hang from their webs.

Many of the water spiders fall prey to the fish. The trout is especially fond of spider meat. The ground dwelling spiders have to watch out for mice and the small furry animals. Most of them enjoy a snack of spider now and then.

Possibly the greatest enemies are among the insects. A certain lone wasp, it seems, does her best to get even with the spider for the damage she does to other insects. This wasp will hoard spiders for her newly hatched grubs to eat. One such wasp may slaughter as many as 500 spiders for a single batch of her grubs.

Then there are the ants who devour the newly hatched baby spiders, Certain flies can even pierce the hard cocoon around the bundle of spider eggs and devour them.

Yes! indeed. the poor little spider has her worries. In fact, it is thought that only two out of every hundred spiders hatched ever grow up to spin a web. This may seem a very sad start'„ But just think what a spidery world it would be if all of them grew up.