# What's the biggest spider web?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-spider-web/321261>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 12, 2005, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-spider-web/321261 "2005-09-12T16:29:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Genghis\_Bob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/45deac/32.png) [@Genghis\_Bob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Genghis_Bob)\
**Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-spider-web/321261/1 "2005-09-12T16:29:13Z")

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This question came to me courtesy of a bunch of things slamming together in my mind:

1. Various “camel spider” threads complete with pictures of really big, scary-looking spiders.
2. A recent Far Side thread with one of my favorite lines: “If this works, we’ll eat like kings!”
3. I caught The Thief of Bagdhad on cable over the weekend.

So here’s the question:

What’s the biggest creature that is regularly caught in a spider’s web, and eaten by the spider? Put another way, just how big, and how strong, can a real spider web get? Or, what’s the biggest, baddest, scariest web-spinning spider?

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**Author:** ![Earthworm\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f07891/32.png) [@Earthworm\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earthworm_Jim)\
**Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-spider-web/321261/2 "2005-09-12T16:34:17Z")

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Talk about synchronicity! I just posted a “giant spider” question!

Oh, and [check this out](http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/animals/millions_of_tiny_spiders.htm). Not one spider, mind you. But big & scary in its own right.

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**Author:** ![slaphead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@slaphead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slaphead)\
**Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-biggest-spider-web/321261/3 "2005-09-12T16:58:16Z")

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> [@Genghis Bob](#):
>
> What’s the biggest creature that is regularly caught in a spider’s web, and eaten by the spider? Put another way, just how big, and how strong, can a real spider web get? Or, what’s the biggest, baddest, scariest web-spinning spider?

I have seen one in Kenya that was probably a good twenty feet across, between two treetops forty feet off the ground. I noticed it because I saw lots of beetle and butterfly parts on the ground and looked up. The spider was sat in the web and looked pretty beefy :eek:

I doubt whether they catch anything much bigger than grasshoppers or big beetles though, since from experience even a locust has a lot of momentum when flying (ouch!) and would probably tear straight through a web, which wouldn’t be good. More effective to catch lots of smaller insects than a few big ones.