Spiders as Meals
Vertebrates like lizards, birds, and toads eat spiders, especially at times of the year when there’s not much food around. But in general they’re not a major threat to spiders.

The heaviest predation is from parasitic wasps. Mud dauber wasps--described by Catley as “the ones whose nests look like organ pipes”--will take adult spiders, sometimes right out of their webs, sting them to paralyze them, and use them to stock their nests as food for their growing larvae. Other types of wasps will drag a spider underground, clipping off its skinny legs if it’s a tight fit, which, surprisingly, doesn’t kill the spider. The wasp lays a single egg on it, and when it hatches in a week or two, the spider is slowly eaten alive by the larva.