Biggest Spider Found: Goliath Birdeater is the Size of a Puppy, Say Scientists (VIDEO)
The biggest spider ever, the Goliath birdeater, was discovered in the South American forests. Piotr Nasrecki, a Harvard entymologist, recounted his tangles with the humongous tarantula recently and said its about the size of a puppy.
The biggest spider known to man was seen in Guyana. The South American Goliath birdeater, or Theraphosa blondi, was huge compared to other tarantulas, Naskrecki said.
"I could clearly hear its hard feet hitting the ground and driy leaves crumbling under its weight," the entomologist and photographer wrote on his blog. "I pressed the switch and pointed the light at the source of the sound, expecting to see a small mammal, a possum, a rat maybe. And at first this is what I thought I saw — a big, hairy animal, the size of a rodent."
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It weighs about six ounces, or "about as much as a young puppy," he continued. However, it's bite isn't fatal like the Black Widow spider and others, though the two-inch fangs still hurt — "like driving a nail through your hand," Naskrecki wrote.
The biggest spider also has barbs it can shoot from its legs by rubbing them together, according to LiveScience. Though they don't do much damage, they can apparently cause a lot of pain and discomfort if they reach human eyes.
Although the Goliath bird eater was named as such because the first observation of the arachnid in the 1800s showed another species eating a hummingbird, but that rarely happens. The tarantula mostly feeds on insects, but can occasionally eat mice or lizards as well.
