Hungry spiders eat up to 800m tonnes of insects a year!

Lots of people are scared of spiders, even some Newsround presenters, but they are actually really helpful creatures.

According to a new study the world's spiders eat up to 800 million tonnes of insects every year.

That's the same amount of meat and fish that humans eat over twelve months.

It might seem like spiders are greedy but actually they are helping humans and saving us from disease-carriers and pests like flies and insects.

As well as being incredible hunters they are also food for lots of other animals like birds and lizards.

Scientists estimated that there are a total of 25 million tonnes of spiders on Earth.

Then they worked out how much food the spiders need to survive.

Spiders aren't just here to eat up insects they also provide food for over 8,000 species of birds

There are around 45,000 different species of spider.

The University of Basel carried out this study with the hope that these incredible figures make people appreciate spiders more.

So the next time you see one maybe you'll look at it in a new light.