That's probably not a lot of comfort to the poor arachnophobe who spots a spider bigger than a dinner plate, though.Īverage Size: The leg span of a Giant Huntsman can reach upwards of 12 inches in diameter.Ĭomparative Size: A Giant Huntsman's leg span is bigger than the average dinner plate and only slightly smaller than the average steering wheel. While its legs get really long, the Giant Huntsman is also much smaller than the Goliath Birdeater in body size, reaching a length of only about two inches. Instead, this member of the Huntsman spider family (many of which are native to Australia, of course) is a quick, aggressive hunter - hurray! Fortunately for the rest of the world, the Giant Huntsman, which was first discovered in 2001, has thus far only been found in the southeast Asian country of Laos, where it dwells near the entrances of caves. You're more likely to encounter the defense mechanism it uses to fend off predators: shedding irritating hairs that can get into the eyes and nose that cause pain and irritation for days.Ĭonsidered the largest spider in the world by leg span, the Giant Huntsman spider is also cuddly tarantula. The shy Birdeater isn't likely to bite you unless you strike it or its egg sacs, though.
However, the bite of a Goliath Birdeater, while venomous, isn't deadly to humans, though it might make you feel flushed and nauseated. Is It Dangerous To Humans? With a pair of massive fangs that can reach 1½ inches in length, if the Goliath Birdeater bites you, it's going to hurt. Region: The Goliath Birdeater makes its home in the Amazon jungle and rainforests across South America, including in parts of Suriname, Guyana, Venezuela, and Brazil. While the Giant Huntsman spider is sometimes considered larger, the Goliath Birdeater is considerably heavier, weighing up to a little over six ounces, which is heavier than a baseball.Ĭomparative Size: These puppy-sized spiders have bodies bigger than a human fist and a leg span that can exceed the dimensions of a dinner plate. Most of the Goliath Birdeater's diet actually consists of something that birds themselves are also known to eat: earthworms, which come up out of the ground during the night, the same time that this massive spider is out prowling the jungle floor.Īverage Size: The Goliath Birdeater has a leg span of up to 12 inches and a heavy body that can reach almost five inches in length. However, because it hunts on the ground, it doesn't get the chance to snack on birds very often. This opportunistic hunter will target anything it encounters that's small enough to eat, including small mammals, frogs, large insects, and even lizards and snakes. An 18th-century engraving by German naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian depicts this massive arachnid devouring a hummingbird and helped to give the Birdeater its name. Photo:Ĭonsidered the largest spider in the world (that we've discovered so far, anyway), the Goliath Birdeater is, as its name would suggest, large enough to eat birds, though it rarely does. Instead, they're their own thing, kinda midway between a spider and a scorpion. Sure, they're pretty big and very creepy, but they're not actually spiders.
Also, before you say anything - no, camel spiders aren't on this list. The largest? Well, if you're an arachnophobe yourself, you may want to stop reading right now. The smallest is about five inches across.
Here are some of the biggest, creepiest crawlers in the spider world. Fortunately, spiders don't get that big in real life. They crawled across cinema screens in the '50s (and continue to do so today), and they populate our books and our video games. R. Tolkien, at least, our media has been saturated with stories of giant spiders. Even while most spiders aren't actually venomous enough to hurt us, they're creepy and crawly, and when they get on you, all you want to do is brush them off as quickly as possible.įantasy, science fiction, and horror are no escape, either. This may not come as a shock to the arachnophobes in the audience, but fear of spiders is one of the most common phobias the world over.
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