This might be the only time in my life I've uttered the following phrase without a hint of irony: I don't want to live in this planet anymore.
On Tuesday morning, The Washington Post published a story with the most terrifying spider news I've heard in my life. I'll let the headline do the talking for me: "Spiders could theoretically eat every human on Earth in one year."
I wish I was kidding, but the article is just as creepy as the headline suggests.
A study published earlier this month by Martin Nyffeler and Klaus Birkhofer, two European biologists, calculated how much food would be eaten by the entire spider's population in a single year. The result is quite scary: Spiders consume between 400 million and 800 million tons of prey yearly.
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Technically, that's as much meat as every human in the planet combined consumes each year, too. According to the scientists, the seven billion humans in the world eat about 400 million tons of meat and fish per year.
The Washington Post went a step further to make an even more horrifying comparison: The total biomass of all humans is thought to be about 287 millions. If you include children and add about 70 tons more, the total number would still be less than what spiders eat each year.
Or if you want to put it more plainly, spiders could eat everyone on the planet and still be hungry. Cue the screaming.
Thankfully, I was not the only one dying a bit inside. One of my fellow Refinery29 writers said, "I would like to recuse myself from doing or knowing anything about this story." And Twitter... Well, people online were a hot mess.
NOBODY WANTED TO KNOW THIS https://t.co/zlAZNFtZWR
— Kayla Epstein (@KaylaEpstein) March 28, 2017
Now here's a headline that's going to haunt my dreams https://t.co/BzyBWQJIPX
— Julia Glotz (@juliaglotz) March 28, 2017
@washingtonpost I'm now having a panic attack! pic.twitter.com/0b8OvfJJqk
— Ryan J. Kaz (@RyanJKaz) March 28, 2017
what in god’s name
— Dylan Scott (@dylanlscott) March 28, 2017
"Spiders could theoretically eat every human on Earth in one year"https://t.co/8yljHTX9CY
Spiders are cancelled ????? pic.twitter.com/inZkPHuihP
— Rolls Royce Versace (@gabeiskwl) March 28, 2017
However, some dark souls welcomed the tender embrace of death by spiders with open arms.
finally some good news https://t.co/WZiXWYX8gH
— Naomi LaChance (@lachancenaomi) March 28, 2017
please get started, spiders https://t.co/vBI3JYdGQ7
— human garbage pile (@flyspeck) March 28, 2017
fuckin go for it, spiders https://t.co/XW8t1HoXDC
— can't hug every hat (@cyranope) March 28, 2017
If there's any consolation, one Twitter user did point out that even if theoretically spiders could end humanity, they're not exactly built for it.
Oh FFS. Spiders could not theoretically eat all the people. They simply aren't built the right way.
— Alex Wild (@Myrmecos) March 28, 2017
But that doesn't really make me feel any better. Cue the nightmares.
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