[pebblexe]

I've always thought that without spiders vertebrates would never have had a chance to become dominant.

[pavel_lishin]

How come?

[civilian]

Assumedly because we'd all be drowning in ants and flies.

However, there would have been _some_ animal that came along to fill the niche that spiders/arachnids do. There's plenty of insects that prey on other insects. (Here's a quick listicle: http://listverse.com/2010/08/09/10-formidable-predatory-inse... )

[dmix]

The "Robber Fly" is easily the most interesting of the predatory flies: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Asilidae

It's being researched at Cambridge University for applications for drones and other flying robots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukiTGsvFP1Y

They also have these large unique round compound eyes, unlike other flies which are typically flatter. They are very high resolution for such a small fly and have hundreds of mini lenses. Another longer video explaining the research into it's vision and hunting behaviour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X8UunUY6U8

They catch the insects in mid-flight, instead of waiting until they land. They have this amazing ability to fly extremely fast then stopping to turn midflight to land properly on the fly.

> The fly attacks its prey by stabbing it with its short, strong proboscis injecting the victim with saliva containing neurotoxic and proteolytic enzymes which very rapidly paralyze the victim and soon digest the insides; the fly then sucks the liquefied material through the proboscis.

They also can kill other top insect predators that are far larger and more powerful with no problem:

> various Asilidae prey on formidable species including stinging Hymenoptera, powerful grasshoppers, dragonflies and even other Asilidae, in fact practically anything of a suitable size.

[hvidgaard]

We would probably have a lot more smaller birds, doing the same thing.