# Creepy Crawlies Still Outweigh the Brits?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creepy-crawlies-still-outweigh-the-brits/298619>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 10, 2005, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creepy-crawlies-still-outweigh-the-brits/298619 "2005-04-10T02:32:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2005, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creepy-crawlies-still-outweigh-the-brits/298619/1 "2005-04-10T02:32:08Z")

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In Simon Winchester’s book _Krakatoa_, he mentions that early in the Twentieth Century, William Syer Bristowe, an English arachnologist, calculated that the weight of insects devoured by British spiders in an average year exceeded the total weight of all British people combined.

Would this still hold true?

And is the population of spiders and insects unusually high in Great Britain compared with continental Europe and the United States?

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**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2005, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creepy-crawlies-still-outweigh-the-brits/298619/2 "2005-04-10T02:55:00Z")

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The weights of insects compared to humams?

There is no comparison.

They dwarf us.

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**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2005, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creepy-crawlies-still-outweigh-the-brits/298619/3 "2005-04-10T08:08:41Z")

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Whoa…

Thanks, Reeder.

Now I’ve developed a fear of volcanoes and insects all in one weekend – and at my age!

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**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2005, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creepy-crawlies-still-outweigh-the-brits/298619/4 "2005-04-10T13:49:45Z")

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I took the dog on the desert every weekend, when we had a dog. I became convinced that just the ants alone outweighed every other form except possibly other insects.

Of course I didn’t take a scientific investigation but there seems to be an ant hill about every 30 ft.

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**Author:** ![Aankh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@Aankh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aankh)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2005, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creepy-crawlies-still-outweigh-the-brits/298619/5 "2005-04-10T13:59:57Z")

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Vaguely about the OP’s question. [Eek!](http://www.bergen.org/AAST/Projects/ES/PP/Intro.html)

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**Author:** ![mike1dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@mike1dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mike1dog)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2005, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creepy-crawlies-still-outweigh-the-brits/298619/6 "2005-04-10T15:07:47Z")

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To paraphrase an old Far Side cartoon, they’re still just a bunch of bugs.