# Feeding and Caring for your Humongous Spider®

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feeding-and-caring-for-your-humongous-spider/510371>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 16, 2009, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feeding-and-caring-for-your-humongous-spider/510371 "2009-09-16T23:04:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feeding-and-caring-for-your-humongous-spider/510371/1 "2009-09-16T23:04:36Z")

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Nature has found a way to evolve a spider into the size of a smallish elephant. Let’s say, 15 feet from the ground to the top of its bristly back.

For the math, let’s give it a physiology similar to that of a tiger, so this dude is warm-blooded, and if we need to we can give it an internal skeleton to compliment it’s chitinous exoskeleton. It’ll need lungs, I expect. It spins webs.

So. How many 150 pound humans would this bad boy need to eat in a day/week in order to survive?

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**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feeding-and-caring-for-your-humongous-spider/510371/2 "2009-09-16T23:26:14Z")

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You’ve made so many changes to the spider to make it that big, I’m not sure any comparisons to modern spiders would make sense any more.

It’s still a cold-blooded ambush predator, though, so it probably would be analogous to a croc or a snake. It would probably be able to go weeks or months between meals the size of a human, but would happily eat ten times that much if the food was available.

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**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feeding-and-caring-for-your-humongous-spider/510371/3 "2009-09-16T23:43:53Z")

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One ring bearer, with a side of gardener. I read it in a book somewhere.

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**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feeding-and-caring-for-your-humongous-spider/510371/4 "2009-09-16T23:46:29Z")

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The interesting question, seeing as WE are the top predator, is “what’s it taste like”?